Chemical constituents and bioactivities of <i>Panax ginseng</i> (C. A. Mey.)

Ginseng, the roots and rhizomes of Panax ginseng C. A. Mey.(Araliaceae), is widely distributed in northeast China, the Korean peninsula, and Russia.According to different processing technology, it is divided into three categories, including fresh ginseng, white ginseng, and red ginseng.Ginseng has always been a valuable and important folk medicine for more than 2000 years in the East Asian countries, such as China, Korea, and Japan.Recently, along with the popularization of traditional Chinese herbs as dietary supplement in Western countries, Panax ginseng has been used more and more in North America and Europe as well as other parts of the world.Until now, a large amount of literature has been reported on the chemical constituents and bioactivities of ginseng.As listed in the literature, active constituents found in ginseng mainly include polysaccharides, ginsenosides, peptides, polyacetylenic alcohols, fatty acids and so on.In addition, pharmacological effects of ginseng have been demonstrated in cancer, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular system, immune system, central nervous system, and so on (1-3).In this review, we compile the major active components isolated from the three main kinds of ginseng over the past few decades.The biological activities of the crude extract and its constituents are also discussed. Chemical constituentsSeveral classes of compounds have been isolated from Ginseng, including polysaccharides, ginsenoside, peptides, and ligans, etc.Some of their names, 1-85, are collected in Table 1, and some of their structures, 1-85, are shown in Figure 1.As can be seen, ginsenosides are the predominant active constituents of ginseng. PolysaccharidesPolysaccharides are the most abundant components of ginseng.It has been reported that the polysaccharide content in ginseng is nearly 40% (by weight).This class of compounds was first isolated and documented in 1966 (4).The more biologically active carbohydrates in ginseng are acidic polysaccharides, known as ginsan, SummaryGinseng, Panax ginseng (C. A. Mey.), is a well-known Chinese traditional medicine in the Far East and has gained popularity in the West during the last decade.There is extensive literature on the chemical constituents and bioactivities of ginseng.In this paper we compiled the chemical constituents isolated and detected from ginseng including polysaccharides, ginsenosides, peptides, polyacetylenic alcohols, fatty acids, etc. Meanwhile we summarized the biological activities of ginseng, which have been reported over the past few decades, including: anti-aging activity, anti-diabetic activity, immunoregulatory activity, anti-cancer activity, neuroregulation activity, wound and ulcer healing activity, etc.Nevertheless, further studies to exploit other kinds of constituents and new biological activities of ginseng are still necessary to facilitate research and development in the future.