Effects of various processed methods on chemical constituents and anti-hepatitis activity of Bupleurum scorzonerifolium Willd. by metabonomics and molecular docking

In this study, a plant metabonomics technique, utilizing ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI--QTOF), was used to clarify the differences of various processed Bupleurum scorzonerifolium Willd. Principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) were used to determine the differences in raw and different processed B. scorzonerifolium samples, including vinegar stir-fry, wine stir-fry, honey stir-fry, honey bran stir-fry and charcoal stir-fry. Thus, 39 significant compounds, e.g., saponins, free fatty acids, fatty acid pentitol glycosides, organic acid and linalool glycosides, were clearly or tentatively identified by UPLC-ESI--QTOF-MS/MS fragmentation pathways and by comparison with available reference standards. Most importantly, fatty acid pentitol glycosides were discovered and identified in B. scorzonerifolium for the first time. Furthermore, a HepG2 hepatitis model induced by TNF-α was used to measure the anti-hepatitis effect of raw and processed B. scorzonerifolium in vitro. Molecular docking was used to understand the interaction of key Q-markers with the active sites of the target protein. The results show that the UPLC-QTOF-MS metabolomics coupled with molecular docking is a powerful tool to quickly identify quality control characteristics of B. scorzonerifolium and its products.