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Wolfberry is in the genus Lycium L.
(Solanaceae)
and is a perennial shrub, containing ~80 species in temperate and subtropical regions all
over the world, and living in arid to semi-arid environments. The plant usually have
beautiful flowers, red and multi-seeded berries.
There are seven species and three varieties in China. Three
most importent species are
Lycium
barbarum (Lb-goji),
Lycium
chinense (Lc-goji) and
Lycium
ruthenicum (Lr-goji), which
underwent artificial planting many years ago, while the other species are natural
populations. Lb-goji has
red color fruit, no thorns, and grows under drought and cold
conditions in sandy and alkali soil. Ningxia, Qinghai, Gansu, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia
Provinces are the species’ main growing areas. Ningxia Province is the center of origin
for Lb-goji, with the main cultivated varieties being first bred here. Lr-goji has dark black
colored fruit with a high content of anthocyanins. However, Lr-goji has many thorns, making
picking difficult, and its processing industry lags behind, planted area being limited to
small regions in Qinghai Province. The third Chinese wolfberry species, Lc-goji, is
distributed in all over the China.
Many kinds of active compounds have been detected from the
fruit, leaves and roots of
Chinese wolfberry, including polysaccharides (LBPs), zeaxanthin ester, flavonoids,
alkaloids, anthocyanins, glycolipids, phenolic amides, volatile compounds, polyphenolics and
essential oils. A number of studies in particularly showed that LBPs are the main active
ingredients, and they have a variety of pharmacological properties, such as immune
regulation, as well as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-senescence, neuroprotective,
anti-infective, aphrodisiac, anti-tumor and eye, liver and skin protective effects.
Early in 2011, the wolfberry (Lycium
barbarum) genome progject
was initiated by the
institute of Ningxia Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, Yinchuan of China. The project
dedicated to sequence the whole genome and provide the reference genetic information to
plant biologists, breeders nutritionist, and natural pharmacologist.
Citation: Cao, Y. L., Li,
Y. L., Fan, Y. F., Li, Z., Yoshida, K., Wang, J. Y., ... & Liu, Z.
J. (2021). Wolfberry
genomes and the evolution of Lycium
(Solanaceae).
Communications
biology, 4(1), 1-13.
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