The ginsenosides and carbohydrate profiles of ginseng cultivated under mountainous forest

BACKGROUND: Ginseng cultivated under mountainous forest, called “Lin-Xia-Shan-Shen” (LXSS) in China's Pharmacopoeia. In recent years, it has been quickly propelled to plant at a large scale. OBJECTIVE: To study the profiles of ginsenosides and carbohydrate profiles of LXSS. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The contents of ginsenosides and carbohydrates, such as soluble sugar, polysaccharide, pectin, and starch in LXSS, were determined. All the above components were profiled, and the correlations between them were analyzed. RESULTS: The results indicated that the contents of total ginsenoside, protopanaxadiol, protopanaxatriol, Rg(1), Re, Rb(1), Rc, Rb(2), Rd, starch, and pectin were negatively correlated with the growing years within 17 years. Among them, the content of starch was positively correlated with that of pectin. The total ginsenosides was positively correlated with starch and pectin, which cannot be found in garden ginseng, maybe resulting of fertilizer and other manual intervention in process of cultivation of garden ginseng. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The accumulation of ginsenosides and carbohydrate, especially starch and pectin, was different in garden ginseng and LXSS. This research may provide the scientific basis for germplasm evaluation, the cultivation and utilization of ginseng cultivated under mountainous forest.