Summary: | The rhizomes of <i>Polygonatum sibiricum</i> are commonly consumed as food and also used as medicine. However, the metabolic profile of <i>P. sibiricum</i> has not been fully revealed yet. Recently, we developed a novel evergreen species of P. sibiricum. The objectives of this study were to compare the metabolic profiles of two types of <i>P. sibiricum</i>, i.e., the newly developed evergreen type (Gtype) and a wide-type (Wtype), by using UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap-MS-based untargeted metabolomics approach. A total of 263 and 258 compounds in the positive and negative modes of the mass spectra were tentatively identified. Distinctively different metabolomic profiles of these two types of <i>P. sibiricum</i> were also revealed by principal component analysis (PCA) and principal coordinates analysis (PCoA). Furthermore, by using partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) modeling, it was found that, as compared with Wtype, Gtype samples had significantly higher content of oxyberberine, proliferin, alpinetin, and grandisin. On the other hand, 15 compounds, including herniarin, kaempferol 7-neohesperidoside, benzyl beta-primeveroside, vanillic acid, biochanin A, neoschaftoside, benzyl gentiobioside, cornuside, hydroxytyrosol-glucuronide, apigenin-pentosyl-glucoside, obacunone, 13-alpha-(21)-epoxyeurycomanone, vulgarin, digitonin, and 3-formylindole, were discovered to have higher abundance in Wtype samples. These distinguishing metabolites suggest the different beneficial health potentials and flavor attributes of the two types of <i>P. sibiricum</i> rhizomes.
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