writer：Yue Liu et al.
keywords：Chinese herbal medicine processing, stilbene-glycoside, anthocyanins, co-assembly, stability
source：期刊
specific source：Food Funct., 2023, DOI: 10.1039/D2FO03402F
Issue time：2023年

Elucidating the underlying mechanism of the processing of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is crucial and also challenging for the modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Herein, inspired by the traditional method for processing Chinese herbs Polygonum multiflorum Thunb (PM) with the excipient black beans, the representative herbal component trans-2,3,5,4''-tetrahydroxystilbene 2-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (TSG) and cyanidin-3-O-β-glucoside (C3G) from each herbal medicine were respectively selected to investigate the processing mechanism at supramolecular level. The coassemblies of TSG/C3G were found to be formed, and their structure was characterized by electronic microscopy and a small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) technique. Additionally, the supramolecular interactions between TSG and C3G were fully probed with UV-Vis, fluorescence, XRD, and NMR spectroscopy. And the molecular dynamics were further performed to simulate the assembly process of TSG and C3G. Notably, the formation of TSG/C3G co-assemblies was found to significantly enhance the stability of TSG against light, Fe3+, and simulated intestinal fluid. The co-assembly of TSG and C3G leads to supramolecular aggregates discovered here may imply the underlying mechanism of processing of PM with black beans. And our results shown here may also suggest the new effective form of TCM being as supramolecular aggregates rather than the individual components.