Ploidy, Genetics, And Metabolomics Of Achillea, A Venerable And Variable Medicinal Plant

Abstract

Humans have turned to plants for medicine since ancient times. In recent centuries technology has allowed isolation of pure compounds which largely replaced herbal medicines in the USA around the beginning of the 20th century. However, even in today’s world of modern medicine, some herbal medicines can offer support for health in ways that pharmaceutical drugs cannot. With the advent of high resolution analytical instruments it is now possible to reconsider herbal medicines in all of their chemical complexity. Using the ancient medicinal plant Achillea millefolium as a case study, I use high resolution accurate mass-mass spectrometry to chemically profile 115 publicly available accessions of Achillea spp. cultivated in a common garden.In Chapter 1 I describe a brief history of medicine and technology to understand how we arrived at the current reductionist single-active-constituent mindset, and why it is important to broaden our mental model. In Chapter 2 I use flow cytometry and karyology to describe the ploidy of each of the 115 Achillea accessions. I also use DArTseq, a SNP analysis technique, to describe the population structure among these accessions. Finally, in Chapter 3 I use high performance liquid chromatography tandem to a high resolution mass spectrometer to chemically profile the 115 accessions. Altogether, this study helps to better understand the role that ploidy and genotype play in the chemotype of Achillea spp. The high resolution chemical profiling also helps to re-envision plants with a higher level of chemical complexity. Additionally, it serves as a potential model for improving approaches to quality control in the herbal industry.