The Quality Assessment Of Cyathula Officinalis Kuan

Cyathula officinalis Kuan is one of the well-known chinese traditional herbs with a high demand and a long history. As a rule, most of herbs are cultivated in Bao xin, Tian quan, and Jin kou he, where the production usually have a good quality. In recent years, some new planting areas, such as Chongqin, Hubei, Hunan, are expanding its production. All the areas possess theirself characteristic of enviroment, cultivated varieties, planting techniques and post-harvest treatment, which may have effects on the quality of herbs. Therefore it’s necessary to evaluate the quality of herbs from different areas, especially between genuine producing areas and non-genuine producing ones.The quality assessment of herbs is always the research hotspot and difficult point, as well as the key of modernization of traditional chinese medicine. Chinese Pharmacopoeia, the most authoritative and prominent research achievement, has been keeping be doubted about its scientificity, completeness and applicability since be published. Therefore it’s necessary to continue to improve the theory and method about the herbs’ quality assessment.For the reasons given above, this study assessed the quality of samples based on their maker compounds and modified HPLC fingerprint. The research results have a guiding role for herbal cultivation and clinical application. The main results are below.1. It optimized the extraction technology of cyasterone and got an efficient method, which is that using particles of20sieve mesh in size to extract2times and bath for30minutes in75℃water each time. It’s helpful to specify the pre-assay treatment for revises of Chinese Pharmacopoeia.2. This study created a modified HPLC fingerprint that can well reveal the intraspecific difference of C. officinalis. Then it drew up the standard of quality classification based on the fingerprint similarity factor between samples and contrasted herbs. 3. When it took cyasterone content as quality assessment indicator, the samples with different habitats, growth-years and cultivated varieties, were sorted as Wushan> Baoxing> Enshi> Fengjie> Longhui> Jinkouhe,3growth-years>2growth-years>1growth-year, C. officinalis> C. capitata. It’s more suitable for Chinese Pharmacopoeia to increase the lower limit of cyasterone content to0.07%, with the fact that most of experience-based eligible samples can easy reached this level.4. When it took total polysaccharide content as quality assessment indicator, there was no significant difference among the samples with different habitats, growth-years and varieties. The essential substances that make polysaccharide possess pharmacological activity need to further research.5. When it took quality grade as quality assessment indicator, the Baoxin samples were the best for most of which were marked high-class. The Jinkouhe samples ranked second for the dominant mid-class samples. The Wushan, Fengjie and Enshi samples ranked third jointly for the reason that half of samples were high-class and the other half were mid-class. The Longhui samples were the worst for most of which were low-class.