Tamarindus indica L. (tamarind) is a traditionally consumed food and medicinal plant with increasing relevance in the development of functional foods and bioactive natural ingredients. While the fruit pulp has been extensively utilized in food products, other fractions, including seeds, shells, and leaves, remain comparatively underexploited despite emerging evidence of notable nutritional and phytochemical value. This review summarizes recent progress regarding the nutritional composition, phytochemical characteristics, biological activities, safety considerations, and industrial applications of different parts of tamarind. These studies indicate that tamarind is rich in carbohydrates, dietary fiber, proteins, minerals, vitamins, polysaccharides, and phenolic compounds, which are associated with anti-oxidant, antihyperglycemic, hypolipidemic, anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, and prebiotic effects. Nevertheless, most evidence is derived from in vitro and animal studies, while human clinical data remain scarce. In addition to their biological activities, tamarind-derived materials have shown promise in food formulation, pharmaceutical excipients, packaging systems, and environmental applications. Although these advances have been achieved, several challenges remain in compositional standardization, extraction efficiency, safety assessment, and clinical validation. Therefore, future research should focus on establishing standardized methods, optimizing extraction processes, improving safety evaluation systems, and conducting rigorous clinical trials to support the sustainable utilization of tamarind resources. Overall, this review provides a comprehensive scientific basis for the value-added development and sustainable utilization of tamarind resources.

Background: Rhizoma Paridis (RP) is economically significant but identifies complex traditional medicine materials, which can be accidentally contaminated, deliberately substituted, or admixed with other species of similar morphological characteristics. This issue can affect quality and safety issues. Objective: In this study, the screening technique to detect adulteration in RP was developed using multiple fingerprints and chemometrics. Methods: Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) combined with chemometrics, including similarity analysis (SA), principal component analysis (PCA), orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA), and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), were applied for the identification of RP and its adulterants. Results: HPLC analysis was more sensitive than FT-IR for differentiating RP from its contaminants. Except for the slight overlapping between Paris polyphylla var. chinensis (Franch.) Hand.-Mazz. and Paris mairei H.Lév., the remaining species could be successfully differentiated by the chemometrics method. Conclusions: This study indicates that the fingerprint of FT-IR and HPLC combined with chemometrics may be a valuable tool for discriminating RP and its adulterants. Highlights: FT-IR and HPLC combined with chemometrics analysis were developed to discriminate between RP and adulterants. The chemometrics analysis using SA and OPLS-DA indicates significant differentiation in the chemical composition of these species. This research provides important chemotaxonomic references in species identification.

Polygonatum hirtellum is a perennial herb within the family Asparagaceae. In the present study, the chloroplast (cp) genome of P. hirtellum is reported for the first time, and its phylogenetic relationships are also investigated. The findings revealed that the cp genome was 155,697 bp and exhibited a typical quadripartite structure, consisting of a large single copy (84,468 bp), a small single copy (18,491 bp), and a pair of invert repeat sequences (26,369 bp). The GC content of the cp genomes amounted to 37.7%; 130 genes were identified, consisting of 84 protein-coding genes, 38 transfer RNA genes, and eight ribosomal RNA genes. A phylogenetic analysis based on the cp genome and coding sequence showed that P. hirtellum was a member of section Verticillata and could be distinguished from other species of the genus Polygonatum used in the analysis.

Felodipine is recommended as the first-line medication for the treatment of hypertension, and most of the formulations currently used in clinical practice are sustained-release tablets. In this study, a highly sensitive, rapid and cost-effective UPLC-MS/MS method was developed and validated for the determination of felodipine in clinical study. After liquid-liquid extraction for sample preparation, felodipine was separated on a Hedera ODS-2 column with isocratic elution utilizing methanol and 2 mM ammonium acetate buffer containing 0.2% formic acid, and detected by multiple reaction monitoring of m/z 384.0→ 338.1 for felodipine and m/z 430.1→ 372.2 for mifepristone (internal standard) in the positive ion mode. The entire chromatographic separation was completed within a short runtime (4 min per sample), allowing rapid analysis of large batches of biological samples. The calibration curve demonstrated good linearity ( r ≥ 0.9934) over the concentration range of 0.07540–10.05 ng mL ⁻¹ for felodipine with acceptable precision and accuracy. The extraction recovery was higher than 84.8% and the matrix effect ranged from 102.6 to 109.8% for analyte. Felodipine was also stable in human plasma and processed samples under various storage conditions. The present method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study following a single oral administration of 5 mg felodipine sustained-release tablets in healthy Chinese subjects.