Thermal processing facilitates the transformation of major ginsenosides into rare ginsenosides, thereby enhancing the bioactive molecular profile of American ginseng. This study examined the impact of 1-4 cycles of high-temperature and high-pressure steaming (HTHPS) on ginsenoside composition, total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), and antioxidant activity in American ginseng. HTHPS significantly decreased major ginsenoside levels while increasing the content of rare ginsenosides. Following three cycles (HTHPS-3), the concentrations of Rg3, Rk1, Rg5, Rh1, F4, and Rg6 reached 8.68, 6.02, 20.07, 1.92, 3.72, and 2.57 mg/g, respectively, in contrast to their absence in the untreated control. TPC exhibited a 6.74-fold increase after HTHPS-2, whereas TFC showed a 4.27-fold increase following HTHPS-3. Pearson correlation analysis revealed strong positive correlations between rare ginsenosides, TPC, TFC, and antioxidant activity. In summary, HTHPS treatment significantly altered the bioactive profile of American ginseng. HTHPS-2 was more suitable for maximizing TPC and DPPH/ABTS[+] radical-scavenging activities, whereas HTHPS-3 favored rare ginsenoside accumulation, particularly Rg3, Rk1, and Rg5, and exhibited a stronger ·OH radical-scavenging capacity. These findings indicate that the preferred number of HTHPS cycles depends on the target bioactive components and functional properties.

Background/Objectives: Parkinson's disease (PD) currently lacks disease-modifying therapies. Available treatments offer only symptomatic relief and fail to halt progressive dopaminergic neuron loss. American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.) is a well-recognized functional food with documented neuroprotective properties, largely ascribed to its ginsenoside and polysaccharide fractions. However, its endogenous protein component, the American ginseng protein-enriched fraction (AGP), remains underexplored in the context of PD. This study aimed to investigate the neuroprotective effects of dietary AGP on PD and its association with the microbiota-gut-brain axis (MGBA). Methods: AGP was purified, structurally characterized, and then orally administered to male C57BL/6 mice with MPTP-induced PD for 28 days. Multi-omics analyses and Western blotting were employed to evaluate its efficacy and explore potential underlying mechanisms. Results: AGP treatment significantly improved motor function and place navigation performance in the Morris water maze, restored striatal dopamine levels, and reduced α-synuclein (α-Syn) aggregation in PD mice. In addition, AGP was associated with suppression of the TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB/ERK inflammatory pathway, the reshaping of the dysregulated gut microbiota composition, and the correction of metabolic disorders in the sphingolipid and arachidonic acid pathways. Conclusions: AGP was associated with significantly improved neuroprotective effects in PD mice, accompanied by concurrent modulations of the gut microbiota, metabolic profiles, and inflammatory signaling. These associations suggest potential MGBA involvement, although directionality requires further investigation. These findings support further investigation of AGP as a candidate dietary intervention for neurodegenerative diseases.

The sciarid fly Bradysia impatiens (Johannsen) is one of the key pests on American ginseng Panax quinquefolium L. in Liuba County, Shaanxi Province, China. Its living specimens were sampled, isolated, reared, mounted, observed and microphotographed. Its identification was completed through both comparisons of morphotaxonomic characteristics and DNA barcoding, and its occurrences in China were reviewed. After conducting serial rearing experiments of the insect at eight temperatures, we calculated developmental threshold temperatures (C) and thermal constants (K) of the species in its egg, larval, pupal and generational stages, and then constructed four reciprocal models N = K/(T - C), where N denotes developmental duration and T is rearing temperature. With values of K and C as well as their SE written, the reciprocal model for its generational stage is Ngeneration = (374.9 ± 8.15)/[T - (6.6 ± 0.29)]. Based on C and K and annual effective accumulated temperatures, we estimated that the sciarid pest would reproduce at a rate of 4.2 to 5.7 generations a year in local regions. In the laboratory, the fecundity of the species was tested to be 59.2 eggs per female, the survival rate of the immature individuals averaged 46.4% in the range from 10.0 to 30.0 °C, and the sex ratio of female to male was 2:1. Based on these coefficients, we are able to estimate the reproductive potential that a parent female and her offspring may reach in a year if they live under favorable conditions, and corresponding economic losses.

Pu-erh tea occupies an important position in tea consumption because of its distinctive flavor and potential health benefits; however, its flavor acceptability still has room for improvement. To enhance sensory quality and diversify product forms, this study investigated a blending system of American ginseng powder and ripe Pu-erh tea powder and compared the quality and chemical composition of samples with different blending ratios by integrating sensory evaluation, physicochemical analysis, flavoromics, and untargeted metabolomics. The results showed that SP2, consisting of 75% ripe Pu-erh tea powder and 25% American ginseng powder, achieved the highest overall sensory score among the experimental blends (SP1-SP3) and was characterized by an aged aroma accompanied by a chrysanthemum-like note, a mellow and full-bodied taste, and a pronounced sweet aftertaste. As the proportion of American ginseng increased, the contents of caffeine and esterified catechins decreased, whereas the soluble sugar content increased. Tentatively identified 2-methylbutanal and (E)-2-octenal in SP2 were considered potential aroma-active candidates. A total of 1,171 tentatively annotated non-volatile metabolic features were obtained, with representative differential features involving flavonoids, phenylpropanoid-related compounds, and ginsenoside-related components. These compositional differences mainly reflected the respective contributions of the two raw materials and changes in their blending proportions, providing a reference for formulation optimization and quality evaluation of blended products.

Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) is a dominant technique for gene expression analysis in medicinal plants, and accurate qRT-PCR data normalization strictly relies on stably expressed reference genes (RGs). However, systematically validated RGs for Panax quinquefolius L. across diverse tissues, abiotic stresses, and hormone treatments are still lacking. In this study, 15 candidate RGs with FPKM values ranging from 7.21 to 210.56 were selected from RNA-Seq datasets based on expression abundance, coefficient of variation, and homology to commonly used reference genes. The expression stability of candidate RGs was evaluated under tissue-specific, drought, waterlogging, gibberellin A3 (GA3), and melatonin (MT) treatments using ΔCt, geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper, and RefFinder methods. UBC28 and EF1-α ranked as the top two most stable reference genes across all tested conditions, with stability values of 2.21 and 2.38, respectively. Subsequent qRT-PCR validation of eight ginsenoside biosynthesis-related genes using the UBC28 and EF1-α normalization system showed that drought and waterlogging stresses induced significant expression fold changes (1.5-4.8-fold) in most ginsenoside synthetic genes, while exogenous GA3 and melatonin treatments caused no significant transcriptional regulatory effects under the tested experimental conditions. This study provides a set of reliable, condition-adaptive RGs for P. quinquefolius and establishes a robust molecular tool for future studies on ginsenoside biosynthesis and stress response mechanisms in American ginseng.

Medicine and Food Homology (MFH) substances are often limited by bitter off-flavors that may limit consumer acceptance. This study employed a multimethod approach integrating electronic nose (E-nose), sensory evaluation, electronic tongue (E-tongue), gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS), and electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate bitterness perception in five representative MFH extracts (Chenpi, Lotus leaf, Sichuan pepper, Gardenia, and American ginseng). Sensory and E-tongue analyses revealed discrepancies between perceived and chemically measured bitterness. GC-IMS identified distinct volatile fingerprints, highlighting differences in aroma composition among samples. EEG results showed that several conventionally bitter extracts were primarily associated with low-frequency scalp-EEG activity (δ-α bands), whereas Sichuan pepper showed an apparent delayed broadband increase extending into the β-γ range. Descriptive scalp EEG patterns varied across MFH stimulation conditions, including differences at frontal and temporal electrodes. Overall, this study provides an exploratory multimethod characterization of the sensory, instrumental, and scalp-EEG responses elicited by different MFH extracts.

American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L., AG) is a high-value medicinal and edible crop widely utilized in traditional and modern healthcare systems. Root rot disease, induced by a complex of diverse phytopathogens, is a major limiting factor hindering the sustainable cultivation of AG. In July 2024, a pathogenic fungal strain was isolated from symptomatic rotted roots of American ginseng and taxonomically identified as Colletotrichum kakivorum. To our knowledge, this represents the first formal report of C. kakivorum causing infection in American ginseng in China. Host range assays conducted on nine medicinal herb species demonstrated that C. kakivorum could infect seven host plants, including ginseng, radix codonopsis, ladybell, dried rehmannia, platycodon, fragrant solomonseal rhizome, and cochinchinese asparagus, but did not infect white peony or heterophyllous falsestarwort. Two fungicides, pyraclostrobin and difenoconazole, exhibited prominent inhibitory effects against the pathogen. Specifically, pyraclostrobin at 0.1 mg·L[-1] and difenoconazole at 0.05 mg·L[-1] completely inhibited the germination of C. kakivorum conidia. Field inoculation trials further verified that foliar application of 500 mg·L[-1] pyraclostrobin and 200 mg·L[-1] difenoconazole reduced the disease incidence of American ginseng root rot (AGRR) by approximately 62%. An integrated management strategy, including crop rotation with non-host medicinal herbs combined with fungicide application, was verified to efficiently control American ginseng root rot induced by C. kakivorum. Collectively, these findings provide a fundamental theoretical basis and practical reference for the prevention and management of C. kakivorum-associated root rot in American ginseng seedlings.

Accurate quantification of key chemical constituents is critical for quality control in food and pharmaceutical products, yet conventional analytical methods are often destructive, time-consuming, and costly. Combining near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy with deep learning shows strong potential for quantitative regression. However, labeled spectra typically require expensive, labor-intensive reference assays, resulting in limited training data that constrain model training, generalization, and real-world deployment. Although data augmentation can mitigate small-sample issues, existing generative approaches often struggle with stable synthesis and precise conditional control under continuous regression labels, which may cause spectrum-label inconsistency and limit downstream gains. To address these challenges, we propose an Adaptive Conditional Diffusion Model (ACDM) for NIR spectral generation with continuous regression conditioning, designed for regression-oriented augmentation. ACDM integrates robust conditioning via classifier-free guidance and Feature-wise Linear Modulation (FiLM), label-guided adaptive noising through a condition-guided noise injection network, spectral feature recalibration using Squeeze-and-Excitation modules to preserve fine-grained absorption structures, and an improved one-dimensional U-Net tailored to NIR signals. Experiments on three representative NIR regression datasets (American ginseng, corn kernel, and tablet samples) show that ACDM generates spectra with high distributional consistency and spectral-shape fidelity. More importantly, ACDM-based augmentation consistently improves regression performance. Under the highest-performing predefined augmentation setting, ResNet1D achieves R[2] values of 0.9462, 0.9370, and 0.9311 on the three datasets, with low prediction errors and stable residual behavior. These results demonstrate that ACDM effectively enhances NIR regression under limited labeled data in the three evaluated sample systems and supports its potential for regression-oriented spectral augmentation.

Most patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) treated with cisplatin (cDDP) ultimately develop resistance. Owing to its anti-tumor effects and low toxicity, ginsenoside Rg2 (G-Rg2) is regarded as a potential active compound for the chemotherapy of EOC. By leveraging expression profiles of cDDP-sensitive and -resistant EOC patients from GEO datasets, we employed weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) to screen for candidate differentially expressed genes relevant to the treatment of cDDP-resistant EOC. Based on this analysis, we identified the key target of G-Rg2 for addressing cDDP resistance in EOC through network pharmacology, clinical data analysis, and molecular docking techniques. Following screening, CACNA1G was selected as the potential target of G-Rg2 for treating cDDP-resistant EOC. Subsequently, G-Rg2 was extracted from American ginseng berry using a chromatographic separation and purification method involving a saturated n-butanol layer. Experimental validation was performed via RNA sequencing, immunostaining, western blot, and flow cytometry in cDDP-resistant EOC cells to ascertain the alterations induced by G-Rg2 treatment. The stereoisomers of G-Rg2 [20(S)-G-Rg2 and 20(R)-G-Rg2] were utilized to treat cDDP-resistant EOC cells, demonstrating that G-Rg2 inhibits CACNA1G-mediated calcium signaling and downstream ERK phosphorylation, processes associated with cell proliferation. Compared to 20(S)-G-Rg2, 20(R)-G-Rg2 exhibited a more significant inhibitory effect on the CACNA1G-mediated calcium influx and downstream signaling, avoiding activation of anti-apoptotic pathways. Collectively, this study elucidates that G-Rg2 inhibits the cell viability of cDDP-resistant EOC by suppressing CACNA1G-mediated calcium signaling pathway, suggesting its potential application as an adjuvant chemotherapy agent for cDDP-resistant EOC.

Acute cold exposure/rewarming (ACE/R) disrupts cardiovascular homeostasis and causes severe myocardial injury, yet effective countermeasures are scarce. Ginger-processed American ginseng (GPAG), a medicine-food homologous herb, exerts anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and metabolic-regulatory effects; however, its cardioprotective mechanisms against ACE/R remain unclear. An ACE/R rat model was established by exposing rats to -15 °C for 6 h followed by 24 °C rewarming for 12 h, with 7-day GPAG gavage (1 and 2 g/kg) prior to cold exposure. Integrated multiomics, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), and fecal metabolite-cardiomyocyte intervention assays were employed to elucidate the gut-heart axis mechanism. GPAG ameliorated hemorheological disorders, restored cardiac dysfunction, and attenuated myocardial lesions. Mechanistically, GPAG remodels gut microbiota to generate functional metabolites that activate the myocardial AMPK/PGC-1α/PPARα pathway via the gut-heart axis, thereby optimizing cardiac energy metabolism and restoring mitochondrial homeostasis to alleviate ACE/R-triggered myocardial damage.

The composition of ginsenosides is closely associated with antioxidant activity, but the effects of variety and growth year on the accumulation of individual ginsenosides and their quantitative relationships with free radical scavenging activity remain unclear. In this study, six ginsenosides (Rb1, Rb2, Rc, Rd, Re, and Rg1) in cultivated ginseng (Panax ginseng C. A. Mey.) and American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.) were quantified by HPLC, combined with DPPH and ABTS assays, and systematically analyzed using PCA, OPLS-DA, HCA, and PLSR. The results showed that variety exerted a much greater influence than growth year. American ginseng contained significantly higher levels of PPD-type ginsenosides (Rb1, Rd, Rc), while Rg1 was more abundant in cultivated ginseng. OPLS-DA clearly distinguished the two varieties based on ginsenoside profiles, with Rc, Rb1, and Rd identified as key marker ginsenosides (VIP > 1). Ginsenoside extracts showed scavenging abilities against both DPPH and ABTS. However, the PLSR model only successfully yielded predictive capability for DPPH. The poor prediction for ABTS suggested that ABTS scavenging may be attributed to other untested constituents in the extracts. This study provides a robust basis for variety-oriented quality control and antioxidant efficacy evaluation in ginseng products.

Myocardial infarction (MI) necessitates the promotion of angiogenesis to improve prognosis. Panax quinquefolius saponins (PQS), bioactive constituents of a medicinal and edible homologous plant, are known for their cardiovascular benefits, but their epigenetic mechanisms in post-MI angiogenesis remain unclear. In this study, PQS was obtained through a water extraction method followed by stepwise enrichment via ethanol elution. Surgical ligation of the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery was performed to establish an MI model in male C57BL/6 mice. The therapeutic effects on MI in each group were assessed through histopathological staining and echocardiography. The therapeutic effects of PQS on hypoxic human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were evaluated using tube formation assays, scratch assays, CD31 immunofluorescence, and Western blot (WB). Network pharmacology analysis, Bisulfite Sequencing PCR (BSP) detection, PCR, and WB were utilized to examine the influence of DNMT3b on Notch1 methylation. Cellular Thermal Shift Assay (CETSA) and Co-Immunoprecipitation (Co-IP) assays were employed to ascertain the binding interaction and stability between PQS and DNMT3b. Here, we demonstrate that PQS directly binds DNMT3b, thereby reversing aberrant DNA methylation at the Notch1 promoter and activating the Notch1/ubiquitin-specific protease 5 (USP5)/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling axis, thereby enhancing endothelial cell migration, tube formation, and angiogenesis in MI models. Ginsenoside Rc, ginsenoside Rh4, and vinaginsenoside R1 were identified as the key active components with the strongest DNMT3b binding affinity and angiogenic activity, with ginsenoside Rc demonstrating the most significant therapeutic effects. These findings reveal a novel epigenetic mechanism and confirm that PQS, particularly ginsenoside Rc, is a highly promising bioactive compound for promoting angiogenesis following MI.

Ginsenosides are the primary bioactive constituents of American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.); however, the relative contributions of climatic factors and soil properties to variation in individual ginsenosides and overall ginsenoside composition across major cultivation regions remain largely unquantified. To address this gap, six major ginsenosides were quantified, including the protopanaxatriol (PPT)-type ginsenosides Rg1 and Re and the protopanaxadiol (PPD)-type ginsenosides Rb1, Rc, Rb2, and Rd, across 41 geographically distinct sites in China. Site-specific meteorological data and soil variables were integrated to quantify the contributions of environmental factors to variation in individual ginsenosides and in overall compositional profiles. Re declined significantly with increasing latitude, whereas Rb2 increased with latitude. Precipitation, particularly precipitation in January and March, emerged as key climatic explanatory variables for variation in PPT-type ginsenosides as well as Rb2. Soil exchangeable calcium (ECa) and available copper (ACu) contributed most strongly to the variation in Rc (ECa: 49.9%) and Rb1 (ACu: 36.1%), respectively. Variation in Rd was jointly explained by climatic and edaphic factors. Redundancy analysis further showed that the measured environmental variables collectively explained 46% of the spatial variation in ginsenoside compositional profiles (F = 9.5; p = 0.001). This study provides a quantitative framework for understanding the key environmental factors associated with ginsenoside composition and for guiding site-specific cultivation management.