Clustering of chemical profiles of Centella asiatica cultivars, grown in greenhouses, allows grouping of metabolites with similar production trends

<i>Centella asiatica</i> (L.) Urban (also known as "gotu kola") is a perennial plant, used in traditional medicine for promoting resilience to central nervous system (CNS) disorders. <i>C. asiatica</i> is a tropical medicinal herb from the <i>Apiaceae</i> family and is native to Southeast Asian countries. The chemical composition and contaminant profile of commercial <i>C. asiatica</i> is variable. The goal of this study was to guide the future cultivation of organically grown <i>C. asiatica</i> for obtaining optimized plant materials for pre-clinical studies and clinical trials. Optimized plant materials in this case are defined as producing similar amounts of biologically active components as previously studied material. In this study, <i>C. asiatica</i> cultivars were grown in Central Oregon and their phytochemical compositions were examined. Four different cultivars were grown in climate-controlled greenhouses over three different vegetative propagation periods. Aerial parts of the plant were collected at four different harvest times: 8, 10, 12, and 14 weeks from growth initiation. The phytochemical composition of each cultivar was analyzed by liquid chromatography high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS/MS). Global metabolomic profiles allowed cultivar-specific compositional differences to be distinguished and production trends of phytochemical constituents to be analyzed using multinomial Bayesian hierarchical clustering and Self-Organizing Maps. Production trends of known bioactive phytoconstituents are reported here and will inform cultivation and harvest strategies to obtain <i>C. asiatica</i> materials of desired composition for preclinical and clinical studies. The computational methods for analyzing cultivar-specific and time-course dependent metabolomic profiles can be applied to other medicinal plant cultivation efforts to optimize cultivation and harvest practices.