Comparative Analysis of Broad-targeted Metabolomics Between Greenhouse Cultivated and Wild Collected Drynaria fortune

【Objective】Drynaria fortunei is a perennial traditional Chinese medicinal herb. Currently, most medicinal materials of this herb are obtained through wild collection, with few reports on artificial cultivation. Due to excessive collection, the wild resources of D. fortune have been severely damaged, leading to a significant decline in medicinal resources. As a result, artificial cultivation has become an inevitable trend. On the basis of exploring the greenhouse cultivation technology of D. fortune, a targeted metabolomics comparative study was conducted between greenhouse-cultivated rhizomes and wild rhizomes by using metabolomics technology. The study aimed to explore the differences in the main metabolites between cultivated and wild rhizomes to provide a basis for the promotion of artificial cultivation technology of D. fortune.【Method】Taking the original plant of Rhizoma Drynariae, D. fortune as research object, and UPLC-MS/MS analysis technology was utilized to compare and analyze the differential metabolites between three-year greenhouse-cultivated rhizomes and three-year wild rhizomes. Subsequently, enrichment pathway analysis of differential metabolites was conducted by the KEGG pathway database.【Result】Among 749 metabolites detected from two D. fortune samples, 100 differential metabolites were screened. Compared with wild samples, there were 58 upregulated metabolites and 42 downregulated metabolites in greenhouse-cultivated samples. These differential metabolites mainly included flavonoids, organic acids, amino acids and their derivatives, phenolic acids, alkaloids, free fatty acids and other metabolites. In greenhouse-cultivated samples, flavonols, flavonoid glycosides, sugars and carbohydrate metabolites were all upregulated. Conversely, in wild samples, amino acids and their derivatives, phenolic acids, lysophosphatidylcholine and anthocyanin metabolites were upregulated to a greater extent. Further pathway enrichment analysis revealed that 100 differential metabolites were annotated into 47 metabolic pathways. Significantly enriched pathways included vitamin B6 metabolism, astragalus compound biosynthesis, diarylheptanoids biosynthesis, gingerol biosynthesis, flavonoid and flavonol biosynthesis, cysteine and methionine metabolism, anthocyanin biosynthesis and aminoacyl tRNA biosynthesis.【Conclusion】The contents of flavonols, flavonoid glycosides, sugars and carbohydrate metabolites in D. fortune cultivated in greenhouse are significantly higher than those in wild-collected D. fortune. Considering that the total flavonoids of D. fortune are recognized as the main active ingredients, greenhouse-cultivated D. fortune has the advantage of containing higher levels of active ingredients compared to wild-collected D. fortune. This finding can serve as a scientific basis for large-scale cultivation or artificial cultivation of D. fortune.