Variation of glycyrrhizin and liquiritin contents within a population of 5-year-old licorice (Glycyrrhiza uralensis) plants cultivated under the same conditions.

Cultivated licorice plants (Glycyrrhiza uralensis FISCH.) contain smaller amounts of the triterpene saponin glycyrrhizin than wild licorice plants. To resolve this problem and to breed strains with high-glycyrrhizin content we determined the glycyrrhizin content of 100 samples of G. uralensis that were propagated from seed and grown under the same conditions in the field for 5 years. There was a 10.2-fold variation in glycyrrhizin content among these plants, ranging from 0.46 to 4.67% (average 2.11±0.90%). There was also a wide variation in liquiritin content, ranging from 0.11 to 2.65% (average 1.00±0.49%). The glycyrrhizin content was positively correlated with that of liquiritin in the taproots (r(2)=0.5525). Our results indicate that there are various genetic strains for glycyrrhizin and liquiritin synthesis within a population of plants propagated from seed. The selected high-glycyrrhizin and liquiritin strains will be useful for licorice production and studies on biosynthetic analysis of glycyrrhizin and liquiritin.