Quantification of four active ingredients and fingerprint analysis of Licorice (Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch.) after spaceflight by HPLC–DAD

The rhizomes growing from Licorice (Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch.) seeds carried by the Chinese recoverable satellite named “Shen Zhou” and from the parallel ground-based seeds were selected as the samples. Seeds were flown under the space condition for 18 days. Average radiation dose in the flight recovery module was 0.102 mGy/day and the distance from flight apogee to earth was 350 km and the gravity was 10−6 g. After returning to earth, the seeds carried by the satellite and the parallel ground control were cultivated to maturity under the same condition. In this paper, fingerprint was obtained and contents of the four main ingredients of the samples were investigated on a high performance liquid chromatography with diode-array detection. The differentiation between the 12 samples induced by cosmic factors was observed. Contents of the detected four components of space flight group were much higher than that of the control group. Areas of the 26 common peaks of the 12 samples were analyzed by principal component analysis and three components were extracted. The results demonstrated that extraterrestrial environment could affect the amount of its secondary metabolites. This report provided the scientific data for spaceflight breeding of a medicinal plant and indicated that extraterrestrial orbit is a possible way in accelerating the rate of breeding and select eximious germplasm resources.