Environmental influences on quality features of Oviductus Ranae in the Changbai Mountains

This work studied the influences of environmental factors on the quality features of Oviductus Ranae. Oviductus Ranae is mainly produced in the Changbai Mountains. The samples of Oviductus Ranae were collected from 24 different locations, which covered the main producing areas. The environmental parameters were assessed using a digital raingauge, GPS, a thermometer, and an atmospheric pressure-altimeter. The quality features including expansion degree, ethanol extract, total water, total ash, and five steroid components, of the collected Oviductus Ranae samples were quantified using high-performance liquid chromatography. The results showed that the cholesterol content in the samples collected from the Yanbian Korean region was slightly higher than the others. Samples collected from the Huadian area exhibited much higher contents of 7-hydroxycholesterol and 7-dehydrocholesterol than the rest of the producing areas. The highest content of cholest-4-en-3-one came from the samples collected from Dandong. The contents of 7-keto-cholesterol in samples from different regions were very close. The highest ethanol extract was from the samples in Tonghua. The correlations between the quality features and environmental factors were analyzed by SPSS (version 25.0, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). The results showed that the content of cholest-4-en-3-one was related to the annual average temperature. The total water was correlated with the annual precipitation. 7-Hydroxycholesterol and expansion degree were related to the altitude. The results indicated that environmental factors have certain influences on the quality features.