Abstract: Maojian green tea, a substitute tea derived from the fresh leaves of a traditional herbal plant Dracocephalum rupestre Hance, has been used as digestive herb in Xinzhou, Shanxi. However, scientific evidence regarding its efficacy is still lacking. In this study, we assessed the digestion-promoting effect of Maojian green tea extract (MJ-GTE). The functional food evaluation methods including intestinal propulsion ratio in mice and the body weight, weight gain, food intake, food utilization, pepsin activity, and pepsin excretion in rats were used to evaluate the digestion-promoting effect, and the chemical compositions were then investigated using an ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole orbitrap mass spectrometer. Animal experiments results showed that the intestinal propulsion ratio in high-dose MJ-GTE group mice (0.83 g/kg/d) was significantly increased comparing with the model group (P < 0.05), and the pepsin excretion in medium-dose MJ-GTE group rats (0.21 g/kg/d) was significantly increased comparing with the negative control group (deionized water) (P < 0.05), which indicated MJ-GTE has a digestion-promoting effect. The metabolomics analysis resulted in the identification of 98 compounds, among which flavones (apigenin and luteolin, 0.14-0.77 mg/g), flavanones (naringenin and eriodictyol, 0.49-1.49 mg/g), flavone-7-O-glycosides (0.57-9.07 mg/g), and flavanone-7-O-glycosides (4.49-38.98 mg/g) were the main components in MJ-GTE. This study systematically evaluated the digestion-promoting effect of MT-GTE and then analyzed the main chemical composition, as well as provided a theoretical basis for the promotion and development of MJ-GT and its new products in future.

Key words: Maojian green tea, metabolomics, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, chemical composition, digestion-promoting effect