Abstract:Rose, a traditional qi-regulating Chinese medicine, has the effects of moving qi, alleviating depression, harmonizing blood and relieving pain. As a class of food and medicine homologous Chinese medicines, roses have a history of cultivation and planting in China for more than 2 000 years and are widely distributed. Roses contain a variety of chemical components, mainly including volatile oils, polyphenols (e.g. flavonoids), polysaccharides, proteins and amino acids, etc. Modern pharmacological research showed that roses exhibit strong physiological activities in antioxidant, anti-bacterial, hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic, anticancer, antitumor, cardiovascular disease prevention and antidepressant aspects. In this paper, the resource distribution, chemical composition and pharmacological effects of roses are reviewed. The potential quality markers of roses are predicted from the aspects of plant genealogy, specificity of chemical composition and its predictability, traditional medicinal efficacy and medicinal properties, and the correlation between chemical composition and pharmacological effects. The results indicate that geraniol, citronellol, phenyl ethanol, trans-2-heptanol, 2-methylpentanoic acid, 1,1-diethoxyethane, 2,6,10,15-tetramethyldecapeptadecane, apigenin, kaempferol, and quercetin can be used as potential quality markers for roses, in order to provide a reference for the quality control of roses.
