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. 2021 Mar 23;16(1):287-296.
doi: 10.1515/biol-2021-0032. eCollection 2021.

Investigation of bioactivities of Taxus chinensis, Taxus cuspidata, and Taxus × media by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Shuqiang Zhang  1 , Xueyan Lu  2 , Tianyao Zheng  1 , Xiaorui Guo  2 , Qi Chen  1 , Zhonghua Tang  2
Affiliations

Investigation of bioactivities of Taxus chinensis, Taxus cuspidata, and Taxus × media by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Shuqiang Zhang et al. Open Life Sci. .

Abstract

Taxus species have attracted much attention for their potency in cancer treatment. However, investigating the bioactivities of Taxus species is a complex task, due to their diversity, slow growth, and endangered state. The most important Taxus species in China are Taxus chinensis (T. chinensis), Taxus cuspidata (T. cuspidata), and Taxus × media (T. media), which mainly grow in the northeastern region. This article probes deep into the differences among the leaves of T. chinensis, T. cuspidata, and T. media, with the aid of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Through GC-MS, 162 compounds were detected in the samples and found to contain 35 bioactive metabolites. On this basis, 20 metabolites with significant bioactivities (antibiotic, antioxidant, anticancer, and antiaging effects) were identified via unsupervised learning of principal component analysis and supervised learning of partial least squares-discriminant analysis. The results show that T. media has the most prominent antibiotic, antioxidant, and anticancer effects, while T. cuspidata has the most diverse and abundant metabolites that slow down aging.

Keywords: Taxus chinensis; Taxus cuspidata; Taxus × media; bioactivities; gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: The authors state no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The heat map on the relative differences of compounds among T. chinensis, T. cuspidata, and T. media. Note: The relative content of each metabolite was normalized to complete the hierarchical clustering; high and low abundances are in red and blue, respectively.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The PCA score plot (a) and PLS-DA score plot (b) of compounds among T. chinensis, T. cuspidata, and T. media. Note: Blue circle, yellow diamond, and red square represent T. chinensis, T. cuspidata, and T. media, respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The content of metabolites with significant antibiotic effect. (a) Phosphomycin, (b) fumaric acid, (c) caffeic acid, (d) cis-2-hydroxycinnamic acid, (e) 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, (f) dodecanol, and (g) 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The content of metabolites with significant antioxidant effect. (a) l-malic acid, (b) tartaric acid, (c) pyruvic acid, (d) epicatechin, (e) caffeic acid, (f) 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, and (g) 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The content of metabolites with significant anticancer effect. (a) Salicin, (b) fucose, (c) squalene, (d) caffeic acid, (e) anandamide, (f) dehydroshikimic acid, (g) 2,3-dihydroxybenzoic acid, (h) 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid, and (i) 4-hydroxybenzoic acid.
Figure 6
Figure 6
The content of metabolites with significant antiaging effect. (a) 4-Aminobutyric acid, (b) spermidine, (c) squalene, and (d) methionine.
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