A combined quality evaluation method that integrates chemical constituents, appearance traits and origins of raw Rehmanniae Radix pieces

The quality control of Chinese herbal medicine is a current challenge for the internationalization of traditional Chinese medicine.Traditional quality evaluation methods lack quantitative analysis,while modern quality evaluation methods ignore the origins and appearance traits.Therefore,an integrated quality evaluation method is urgent in need.Raw Rehmanniae Radix(RRR)is commonly used in Chinese herbal medicine.At present,much attention has been drwan towards its quality control,which however is limited by the existing quality evaluation methods.The present study was designed to establish a comprehensive and practical method for the quality evaluation and control of RRR pieces based on its chemical constituents,appearance traits and origins.Thirty-three batches of RRR pieces were collected from six provinces,while high-performance liquid chromatography(HPLC)was applied to determine the following five constituents,including catalpol,rehmannioside A,rehmannioside D,leonuride and verbascoside in RRR pieces.Their appearance traits were quantitatively observed.Furthermore,correlation analysis,principal components analysis(PCA),cluster analysis and t-test were performed to evaluate the qualities of RRR pieces.These batches of RRR pieces were divided into three categories:samples from Henan province,samples from Shandong and Shanxi provinces,and those from other provinces.Furthermore,the chemical constituents and appearance traits of RRR pieces were significantly different from diverse origins.The combined method of chemical contituents,appearance traits and origins can distinguish RRR pieces with different qualities,which provides basic reference for the quality control of Chinese herbal medicine.

Identification of Quantitative Trait Loci for Rice Quality in a Population of Chromosome Segment Substitution Lines

The demand for high quality rice represents a major issue in rice production. The primary components of rice grain quality include appearance, eating, cooking, physico-chemical, milling and nutritional qualities. Most of these traits are complex and controlled by quantitative trait loci （QTLs）, so the genetic characterization of these traits is more difficult than that of traits controlled by a single gene. The detection and genetic identification of QTLs can provide insights into the genetic mechanisms underlying quality traits. Chromosome segment substitution lines （CSSLs） are effectivetools used in mapping QTLs. In this study, we constructed 154 CSSLs from backcross progeny （BC3F2） derived from a cross between ＇Koshihikari＇ （an Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica variety） as the recurrent parent and ＇Nona Bokra＇ （an O. sativa L. ssp. indica variety） as the donor parent. In this process, we carried out marker-assisted selection by using 102 cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence and simple sequence repeat markers covering most of the rice genome. Finally, this set of CSSLs was used to identify QTLs for rice quality traits. Ten QTLs for rice appearance quality traits were detected and eight QTLs concerned physico-chemical traits. These results supply the foundation for further genetic studies and breeding for the improvement of grain quality.