Development of quality evaluation method of licorice by metabolomics

中草药的质量评价和控制是一个重要而又困难的问题。甘草是日本最重要的草药之一，根据日本药典甘草酸含量进行规定。然而，甘草提取物的生物活性，如抑制巨相细胞一氧化氮的产生，不能仅通过甘草中甘草酸的含量来评估。而代谢组数据具有全面的成分数据，可以准确地估算出这些数据。因此，中药提取物的代谢组学数据对中药质量评价具有重要意义。

Quality evaluation and control of herbal medicines are important but difficult issues. Licorice is the one of the most important herb in Japan, and regulated by glycyrrhizine content according to Pharmacopeia of Japan. However, biological activities of licorice extracts, such as suppression of nitric oxide generation in macrophase cell, could not be estimated by just only glycyrrhizine content of licorice. However, those could be estimated by metabolome data which possesses comprehensive component data accurately. We suggested that metabolome data in harbal extract is quite useful for quality evaluation of herbal medicines.