A comparative study of Artemisia indica Willd. and Artemisia argyi H.Lév. & Vaniot in herbal medicine

Mugwort belongs to the genus Artemisia, which has over 400 species globally, presenting challenges in accurate species identification. Artemisia argyi H.Lév. & Vaniot is a medicinal plant distributed in Europe and Asia that is recorded in the Pharmacopoeia. Artemisia indica Willd. is another mugwort species widely cultivated and used by East Asians. To date, no systematic studies have compared these two plants. This study aims to establish rapid methods to differentiate between them and analyse differences in biological activities. Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) analysis revealed a band characteristic of A. indica with Rf = 0.43. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) results showed that oxygenated terpenes (69.2 %) were abundant in A. indica, whereas hydrocarbon terpenes (60.0 %) were abundant in A. argyi. The TLC-bioautography showed that the amount and type of antibacterial compounds between the two herbs are similar. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of both Artemisia species against Escherichia coli is 19 mg/mL. However, results of TLC-direct bioautography show that the antibacterial activity of A. indica is stronger than that of A. argyi. The water extract of A. indica, rather than A. argyi, stimulated the mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) growth by 20 % and exhibited anti-aging activity against MSC senescence induced by D-galactose.