Fritillaria cirrhosa bulbs (FC) are key Chuanbei Pipa Tangjiang (CPT) ingredient for cough-sputum relief. Wild scarcity prompted cultivation of tissue-cultured and regenerated plantlet bulbs (TFC/RFC), yet their chemical profiles and antitussive-expectorant equivalence to wild bulbs (WFC) in CPT remain unclear. This study compares the chemical profiles and antitussive-expectorant equivalence of CPT prepared from TFC, RFC and WFC (TCPT, RCPT, and WCPT). We compared the chemical profiles of these three CPT types by LC-MS, and used rat plasma metabolomics and mouse antitussive-expectorant model to assess mechanisms and antitussive-expectorant equivalence. Results showed that five marker constituents (sipeimine, platycodin D, etc.) were quantitatively identical across TCPT, RCPT, WCPT, yielding chemical-profile similarities of 89.9% (TCPT vs. WCPT) and 91.0% (RCPT vs. WCPT). Metabolomics indicated that WCPT-derived platycodin D, peimisine and 4-hydroxycinnamic acid modulated eight pathways, including glutathione, vitamin B6 and selenoamino acid metabolism; TCPT and RCPT concordantly regulated pyroglutamate, aldosterone, associated pathways, with OPLS-DA metabolic-profile concordances of 93.75% and 100% to WCPT. TCPT, RCPT, WCPT presented 37, 46, 32 unique blood-entering constituents, respectively; their functional targets lay within − 20% to + 25% bioequivalence margin. The antitussive-expectorant model revealed no inter-group differences. Thus, TFC, RFC and WFC exhibit high chemical, mechanistic and therapeutic concordance in CPT, with RFC serving as an optimal bioequivalent substitute for WFC.
Song et al. (Thu,) studied this question.