Differential accumulation of triterpenoids in Ziziphus jujuba and Ziziphus acidojujuba: insights from terpenoid metabolomics across organs and developmental stages.

Triterpenoids constitute the principal bioactive compounds in jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) and sour jujube (Ziziphus acidojujuba Cheng et Liu), but their spatiotemporal distribution and metabolic accumulation patterns remain understudied. In this work, metabolomic analysis via UPLC-MS/MS identified 85 distinct triterpenoid metabolites, comprising 57 triterpenes and 28 triterpene saponins. Triterpenes accumulate mainly in the root bark and branch bark, whereas triterpenoid saponins are concentrated mainly in the flowers and young/mature leaves. In the prefruit stage, triterpene saponins accumulate, whereas in the later stages of development, triterpenes metabolites subsequently accumulate. Quantitative analysis revealed that betulinic acid had the highest concentration in the root bark (4.945 mg/g). This study provides the first comprehensive, metabolomics characterization of triterpenoid composition and accumulation dynamics in jujube and sour jujube and may guide future applications in functional food development and phytopharmaceutical research.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Food Chemistry

• Publication date

  2025-11-05

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Chemistry, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.146959PMID 41207043
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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