Abstract
Panax quinquefolium L., a renowned medicinal and edible plant with a long history, was once referred to as “The King of Herbs”. Due to its excellent medicinal and nutritional values, it has been developed into a variety of functional products. Polysaccharides are the main bioactive component of Panax quinquefolium L. and have various bioactivities, such as immunomodulation, antioxidant properties, anti-aging benefits, and other biological properties. Due to the distinctive bioactivity of Panax quinquefolium L. polysaccharides (PQPs), the research on PQPs is booming. Although a series of PQPs have been isolated and characterized, the chemical structure and mechanism are unclear and need further study. This article reviewed recent progress in isolation, identification, pharmacological properties, and possible therapeutic mechanisms of PQPs to update awareness of these value-added natural polysaccharides. Additionally, the article discussed the challenges and opportunities facing PQPs in the nutraceutical, pharmaceutical and food sectors and scrutinized its potential development and future research directions. This paper provides comprehensive knowledge and a foundation for further research and application of PQPs as a therapeutic drug and functional food ingredient.
Introduction
Panax quinquefolium L. is a perennial herbaceous plant of the Panax L. in the Araliaceae family, which grows as an understory plant in deciduous broad-leaved forests. It also known as American ginseng (Fig. 1A–B) [1]. It is native to North America, and now it is distributed in the high-altitude mountainous areas in the southern provinces of China, such as Jilin, Shandong, Shaanxi, and Yunnan (Fig. 1E). After its successful introduction in China in the early 1980s, the planting area has been expanded year by year, and China has now become the third largest country in the world producing P. quinquefolium L. [2]. P. quinquefolium L. has been a valuable Chinese medicine since ancient times, and it is also a high-class tonic [3]. As early as the 33rd year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty, the “Compendium of Materia Medica” recorded: “cool in nature, bitter in taste, sweet and thick in taste, and thin in air, nourishing the lungs and reducing fire, generating fluids, eliminating fatigue, and suitable for those with deficiency and fire” [4]. According to the “Intergrating Chinese and Western Medicine”: “P. quinquefolium L. has a sweet and slightly bitter taste, and is cool in nature, which can supplement the qi component, and at the same time tonify the blood component, and is cool in nature and tonic, so anyone who wants to use ginseng but is not subjected to ginseng’s warmth and tonicity can use this as a substitute” [5]. In the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, it is also recorded that P. quinquefolium L. can “replenish qi and nourish yin, clear heat and promote the production of body fluid. It can be used for deficiency of qi and yin, deficiency of heat and tiredness, coughing and wheezing, phlegm and blood, internal heat and thirst, dry mouth and throat” [6]. The wide range of functional activities of P. quinquefolium L. is of great value in the research and development of new food and health food products, and it has been specified by the National Health Commission as a Chinese medicinal herb that can be used in health food products [7].
At present, more than 900 kinds of health food with P. quinquefolium L. as raw material have been developed, among which P. quinquefolium L. tea, P. quinquefolium L. oral liquid and P. quinquefolium L. tablets have been approved to be listed by China Market Supervision and Administration Bureau (Fig. 1C). At the same time, the increasing global demand for natural products also provides a broad space for the development of the P. quinquefolium L. market. With the in-depth analysis of the composition and effects of P. quinquefolium L., it has been found that this plant is rich in polysaccharides, amino acids, saponins, fatty acids, and volatile oils [8]. Among them, the content of polysaccharides can reach 50 %–65 %, which is the main active ingredient of P. quinquefolium L., which plays an indispensable role in the process of clinical treatment and attracts people’s attention and attention [9,10]. When searching for “P. quinquefolium L. and polysaccharide” in the Web of Science database, publications from 1998 to 2023 were generated, as shown in Fig. 1D, demonstrating their research and application potential. Polysaccharide of P. quinquefolium L. is mainly composed of sucrose, maltose, glucose, fructose, galactose, sorbose, rhamnose, xylose, etc. [11,12]. It has the functions of anticancer, hypoglycemia, obesity prevention and anti-aging, and it also has the function of regulating the nervous system, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal system [[13], [14], [15], [16]].
However, at present, domestic and foreign research on PQPs mainly focuses on the extraction and its biological activity, and the systematic isolation and purification and structural analysis of PQPs are less comprehensive and in-depth [17]. In addition, studies on the structure of PQPs have primarily focused on their primary structure. At present, the interrelationship between the structure and functional roles of polysaccharides in P. quinquefolium L. has not been studied in depth. This is mainly due to the complexity and diversity of polysaccharide molecules, which makes it extremely challenging to study their high-level structures. Meanwhile, the functional mechanism of PQPs has not yet been fully understood, which further increases the difficulty of the study of their high-level structure and functional mechanism. Therefore, the advanced structure and functional mechanism of PQPs are still the focus and difficulty of current research. Moreover, the main efficacy of common P. quinquefolium L. products in the market is ginsenoside, and the products of PQPs are not very common [18]. This limits the development of P. quinquefolium L. as a food, health product and cosmetic. In the future, it is necessary to deepen fundamental research, expand application areas, promote industrialization and standardization, and achieve multi-party cooperation and cross-disciplinary innovation. For instance, through the perspective of molecular biology to deeply study the biological mechanism, metabolic pathway and role of PQPs in various disease models. Additionally, genomic technology can be used to analyze the functions of genes related to the synthesis of PQPs. Simultaneously, further integration of materials science and drug delivery technology can be accomplished by combining PQPs with nanotechnology to develop innovative drug delivery systems.
In view of the great development potential of PQPs and in order to fully understand PQPs. This review aims to summarize the extraction and isolation, pharmacological activity and market development trend of PQPs, and to provide a comprehensive analysis of its current research status. It provides theoretical data for the research direction of PQPs and promotes the development of PQPs in medicine and cosmetics.
Read more
Feiya Zhao, Chenglong Yin, Mingyang Cao, Yan Qian, Lingsheng Zhang, Yongjie Tian, Xuehua Zhong, Xiao Fang, Aien Tao, The potential, challenges, and prospects of Panax quinquefolium L. polysaccharides as future multipurpose biomacromolecules, International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, Volume 304, Part 2, 2025, 140769, ISSN 0141-8130,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.140769.
