The Paeonia genus, an important source of crude drugs, has been extensively used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to treat cardiovascular and female-related diseases. Although many peony species have been investigated, the study of Paeonia rockii is still quite limited, especially its chemical composition. Here, an advanced ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) analytical te...

Phylogenies of Adh1 and Adh2 genes suggest that a widespread Mediterranean peony, Paeonia officinalis, is a homoploid hybrid species between two allotetraploid species, Paeonia peregrina and a member of the Paeonia arietina species group. Three phylogenetically distinct types of Adh sequences have been identified from both accessions of P. officinalis, of which two types are most closely relate...

A new glycoside of salicylic aldehyde, paeonicluside, was isolated from the roots of the Greek endemic species Paeonia clusii subsp. clusii and identified as alpha-L-arabinopyranosyl-(1-->6)-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside of salicylic aldehyde (1). In addition, one characteristic monoterpene and two monoterpene glycosides were identified as paeoniflorigenone, paeoniflorin and benzoyl paeoniflorin, re...

The genus Paeonia, also known as the "King of Flowers" in China, is an important source of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Plants of this genus have been used to treat a range of cardiovascular and gynecological diseases. However, the potential pharmacological activity of one particular species, Paeonia rockii, has not been fully investigated. In the first part of the present study, 2,2-dip...

The flowers of ZhaoFen and RouFurong may contain essential oils with natural aromatic ingredients. In the present work, the chemical compositions of essential oil of Paeonia suffruticosa Andrews from the flowers of ZhaoFen and RouFu-rong grown only in China were investigated by GC-MS analysis. The results indicate that there are 27 constituents in ZhaoFen and 29 constituents in RouFurong, which...

The Paeonia root, with or without bark, are considered vital traditional Chinese medicine materials; the examples are those of Bai Shao, Chi Shao, and Dan Pi. In this study, we examine 24 genes and their expressions involved in the biosynthesis of paeoniflorin and its derivatives, which are active compounds of the Paeonia root, in Paeonia lactiflora and P. suffruticosa, as well as other related...

Paeonia ostii, a common oil-tree peony, is important ornamentally and medicinally. However, there are few studies on the chloroplast genome of Paeonia ostii. We sequenced and analyzed the complete chloroplast genome of P. ostii. The size of the P. ostii chloroplast genome is 152,153 bp, including a large single-copy region (85,373 bp), a small single-copy region (17,054 bp), and a pair of inver...

The nuclear-encoded chloroplast-expressed glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase (GPAT) gene has been found to be single-copy in a number of angiosperm families. In this study we investigated the phylogenetic utility of the GPAT gene at the interspecific level using the genus Paeonia (Paeoniaceae) as an example. An approximately 2.3- to 2.6-kb fragment of the GPAT gene, containing a large intron ...

Anthocyanins are major pigments in plants. Methylation plays a role in the diversity and stability of anthocyanins. However, the contribution of anthocyanin methylation to flower coloration is still unclear. We identified two homologous anthocyanin O-methyltransferase (AOMT) genes from purple-flowered (PsAOMT) and red-flowered (PtAOMT) Paeonia plants, and we performed functional analyses of the...