Chinese herbal medicine resources: Where we stand

Ran-Ran Gao; Ya-Ting Hu; Yang Dan; Li-Jun Hao; Xia Liu; Jing-Yuan Song

doi:10.1016/j.chmed.2019.08.004

Chinese herbal medicine resources: Where we stand

Chin Herb Med. 2019 Dec 20;12(1):3-13. doi: 10.1016/j.chmed.2019.08.004. eCollection 2020 Jan.

Authors

Ran-Ran Gao^{1

2}, Ya-Ting Hu³, Yang Dan¹, Li-Jun Hao^{1

2}, Xia Liu³, Jing-Yuan Song^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100193, China.
² Engineering Research Center of Traditional Chinese Medicine Resource, Ministry of Education, Beijing 100193, China.
³ School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Life Sciences, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China.
⁴ Yunnan Branch of Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Jinghong 666100, China.

Abstract

In recent years, the development of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been challenged by shortages of CHM resources and drug safety concerns related to end products. There have been significant efforts by Chinese scholars to tackle these challenges, which are revealed by analyzing the research trend of CHM resources via surveying Chinese Traditional and Herbal Drugs (Zhong Cao Yao), a representative journal in CHM. Our study focused on 781 articles in CHM resources from 2013 to 2018 and included four subject areas: germplasm resources, quality analysis and evaluation, cultivation, and bioengineering of CHM. Discussion and prospective for future investigations were also presented, including: construct the core germplasm of medicinal plants and expand germplasms; combine molecular research with field experiments and promote the deeper study of cultivation of CHM plants; improve the quality evaluation method of CHM and strengthen the identification of Chinese patented medicines; promote the sustainable development of CHM resources by utilizing bioengineering and synthetic biology. This study helps international scholars understand the status quo of CHM research and provides theoretical support for the healthy, modern, and international development of CHM, and it will facilitate the sustainable development of the traditional Chinese medicine industry.

Keywords: CHM resources; bioengineering; cultivation; germplasm resources; identification; quality analysis.