Content of Standard Ingredient for Breeding Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch. ex DC. Cultivars Adapted to Korea’s Environment

Background: Licorice is used in herbal medicine, food, medicines, tobacco, and functional health foods. Although Korean cultivation has long been attempted the index component content does not meet the standards of the Korean Pharmacopoeia. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the index component content of G. uralensis to develop a licorice cultivar that meets the index component content of the Korean Pharmacopoeia.BR/Methods and Results: Eight accessions of G. uralensis were grown under identical environmental conditions. The index component content was analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography based on the cultivation year. The glycyrrhizin content in the roots and rhizomes increased depending on the cultivation year. Through correlation analysis between glycyrrhizin and liquiritigenin in the roots, positive correlations were confirmed for all first-, second-, and third-years cultures depending on the number of cultivation years.BR/Conclusions : The results confirmed that the licorice component content was affected by the number of years of cultivation, and it was inferred that environmental factors could affect licorice component content. GLY13-05 was selected as a high-quality resource that could meet all the Standard Ingredient of the Korean Pharmacopoeia.