Research progress of diosgenin extraction from Dioscorea zingiberensis C. H. Wright: Inspiration of novel method with environmental protection and efficient characteristics.

[Display omitted] • Diosgenin production from Dioscorea zingiberensis with methods was reviewed. • Acidolysis, enzymolysis, and microbiological hydrolysis were normally used. • 151 diosgenin production cases were summarized with different methods. • The optimal parameters for diosgenin production were listed in Table S1. • Merits and demerits of different methods for diosgenin production were compared. Diosgenin was the starting materials to synthesize various hormone drugs and mainly generated from Dioscorea zingiberensis C. H. Wright by acidolysis, enzymolysis, microbiological fermentation, and integrated manner. Only acidic hydrolysis with strong acid such as hydrochloric acid or sulfuric acid was used in practice in diosgenin enterprises due to their feasibility and simplicity, nevertheless finally resulting in a great deal of unmanageable wastewater and severely polluted the surrounding environment. Aiming to provide a comprehensive and up-to date information of researches on diosgenin production from this plant, 151 cases were collected from scientific databases including Web of Science, Pubmed, Science Direct, Wiley, Springer, and China Knowledge Resource Integrated (CNKI). Their advantages and disadvantages with different production methods were analyzed based on these available data in this review paper. Considering the fact that nearly all of diosgenin enterprises were closed for the environmental protection and the life health of the people, this review paper was beneficial for providing useful guidelines to develop novel technologies with environmentally-friendly and cleaner features for diosgenin production or facilitate the transformation of other methods like enzymolysis, microbiological fermentation, or integrated methods from laboratory scale to industry scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]