Along with the progress of Chinese pharmaceutical industry, as well as the development of natural products in the world, the need of medicinal plant resources is increasing, which results in the ruinous destruction of endangered medicinal plants. The field cultivation and wild tending cultivation could not solve all the resource problems and the help with bioengineering technolgy will be needed in this field. Micropropagation could quickly supply the shoots with good quality medicinal plants by two ways, the shoot and root induction through callus or the other is shoot development by somatic embryos. The regenerated shoots could be transferred into the field for the base of field cultivation or tending cultivation. In addition, the active compounds could be produced by the cultivated medicinal plant cells, tissues, or organs in bioreactor, which could decrease the cost at industrial level. In China, the bioengineering technology should be developed and applied to the medicinal plants development, because the most resources to support the whole traditiolal Chinese medicine will be utilized, moreover, in China the most amount of extracts from medicinal plants are used and exported all over the world.

One important purpose to investigate medicinal plants is to understand genes and enzymes that govern the biological metabolic process to produce bioactive compounds.Genome wide high throughput technologies such as genomics,transcriptomics,proteomics and metabolomics can help reach that goal.Such technologies can produce a vast amount of data which desperately need bioinformatics and systems biology to process,manage,distribute and understand these data.By dealing with theomicsdata,bioinformatics and systems biology can also help improve the quality of traditional medicinal materials,develop new approaches for the classification and authentication of medicinal plants,identify new active compounds,and cultivate medicinal plant species that tolerate harsh environmental conditions.In this review,the application of bioinformatics and systems biology in medicinal plants is briefly introduced.

As a series of and continuous publication,the papers published on Chinese Traditional and Herbal Drugs in 2010 were selectively and briefly highlighted to reflect the new progress on modern research of Chinese herbal medicines.Within 617 articles,chemical constituents (127),pharmaceutics and technology (149),pharmacological studies and clinical observation,and medicinal materials are still major categories.Some comments have also been personally provided.

Object To study the feasibility of suspension culture of protocorm in Dendrobium candidum Wall ex Lindl and effect of inoculum and medium volume on the growth of protocorm Methods Effect of four basic media MS, 1/2 MS, 67 V, and B 5, inoculum and medium volume on the growth of protocorm were studied by completely random experimental design and orthogonal test design Results The growth of D candidum protocorms in liquid medium was markedly better than that in solid medium (P0 05), B 5 was much better than 1/2 MS (P

Ten constituents have been isolated from the rhizomes of Cimicifuga foetida L.. Based on spectral evidence and by direct comparison with authentic samples, they were identified as isoferulic acid(Ⅰ ), 3-acetylcaffeic acid(Ⅱ ), caffeic ester glucoside(Ⅲ), cimifugin(Ⅳ),cimifugin glucoside(Ⅴ ), 6 -isoinosine (Ⅵ), cimidahurine(Ⅶ ), cimidahurinine(Ⅷ), D-glucose (Ⅸ) and sucrose (Ⅹ ).

By means of HPLC,the changes of endogenous hormones in the process of releasing dormancy in Fritillaria thunbergii Miq. seeds were determined. The results indicated that the content of GA3 had a process of increase while the content of ABA was reduced in general. The content of IAA showed a downward -plateau-upward-downward curve in the process of releasing dormancy. When the dormancy of the seeds were released attemperatures 8~10℃ and 3~5℃,changing pattern of each of the three endogenous hormones were similar,but the duration spanning each change were different.

築y rneans of Rp-HPLC,a quantitative method for the analysis of five ma jor flavonoids in Epimediumsagittatum (Sieb. et Zucc. )Maxim. is developed. The variation of active compounds caused by geographicaland morphological factors are discussed,and a comprehensive evaluation of drug quality of E' sagittatum isgiven.

Family Schisandraceae is composed of two genera Schisandra and Kadsura, which are quite different in regard to the used part and medical function. Traditionally, the fruits of Schisandra plants were called 'Wuweizi' used as tonic for neurasthenia, antitussive, and sedative agents. The stems and roots of Kadsura plants, with names related to 'XueTeng', possess activating blood circulation and eliminating stasis and are used for the treatment of rheumatism, fractures and irregular menstruation. The dried fruit of Schisandra chinensis was recorded in Chinese Pharmacopoeia (2010 Edition) as 'Wuweizi', while the dried fruit of S. sphenanthera was recorded as an official origin of 'Nanwuweizi'. Historically, there was no evidence that the fruits of Kadsura plants were substituted as 'Wuweizi' either in ancient literatures or contemporary marketing. However, genus Kadsura is still popularly called 'Nanwuweizi' and plant K. longipedunculata is regarded as the origin of 'Nanwuweizi', thus this will cause confusion as well as misunderstanding of genus Kadsura. The authors recommended, therefore, the Chinese name of genus Kadsura should be 'Lengfantengshu' and K. longipedunculata with the name of 'Lengfanteng' in order to guarantee the drug authenticity.

Objective To fully understand the medicinal plants of Fritillaria L. , the physicochemical properties of starch in two species of Fritillaria L. , F. thunbergii and F. ussurensis. were investigated by means of various analytical methods. Methods The properties of starch in the two different species of Fritillaria L. were compared by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and themogravimetric analysis (TGA). Results The crystal type of starch in the two species of Fritillaria L.was the characteristic B-type which was in consistent with that of potato starch. The degrees of crystallinity of F. thunbergii starch and F. ussurensis starch were about 29.9% and 20.1%, respectively. However,the degree of crystallinity of the potato starch was 44.9%. From the crystallinity degree of the starch in two species of Fritillaria L. , it could be concluded that the content of amylose in F. ussurensis starch was higher than that in F. thunbergii starch. The granule size of the starch in two species of Fritillaria L.ranged from 5 to 40 μm, which were all smaller than that of the potato. The starch granule in two species of Fritillaria L. was in cycloidal or elliptic-shape. It could be concluded that the thermal stability of the starch in two species of Fritillaria L. was different due to the different structures of different starch in various plants by TGA. Conclusion The physicochemical properties of starch in two different species of Fritillaria L. differ a lot due to their geographical origin.