Quality Control On Epimedium Brevicornum And Determination Of Total Flavonoids

The genus Epimedium comprises about52species, which have been utilized as tonic in China since ancient. Crude extracts of Epimedium brevicornum have been shown to display a number of interesting biological activities, such as anti-inflammatory, estrogenic, antidepressant-like, anti-aging, anti-osteoporosis, and angiogenesis activity.The detection methods of total flavonoids in Epimedium brevicornum are UV-vis, high performance liquid chromatogram (HPLC), reverse phase high performance liquid chromatogram (RP-HPLC), high performance thin layer scanning (HP-TLC) method, thin layer-vis, high performance capillary electrophoresis, double wavelength thin layer scanning method, column chromatography first derivative spectrometry, macro absorption resin, and colorimetric method. All these methods are all using icariin and quercetin for reference substances and are important for improvement of extraction technology. Among the above methods, some are very easy to conduct and special instruments are unnecessary. HPLC are very useful for detecting single component, like icariin and epimendin C, and could be used for quality control. The Chinese Pharmacopia2010shows that the content of total flavonoids in Epimedium brevicornum should be no less than5.0%, but the detected data are always high than the real value. So the aim of the study is to improve the detection method using HPLC coupled with UV, and then to optimize the extraction technology of icariin.The extraction technology of icariin was optimized by orthogonal design using extracting solvent, solvent dosage, and extracting time as factors and content of icariin as index. And then the extract was purified by macro absorption resin. The optimized tehchnology is12times of60%ethanol as extracting solvent, heated to reflux for2times,3h each times. The extract was separated by D-101macro absorption resin to purify icariin and then eluted with50%ethanol to gain the extract with the content of icariin at50.2%.The content of total flavonoids in Epimedium brevicornum signigicantly influences the pharmacological effects and clinical efficacy. The quality of Epimedium brevicornum is comared through detecting the content of total flavonoids in Epimedium brevicornum from different habitats.HPLC method was applied to simultaneously detect the contents of icariin, epimendin A, epimendin B, and epimendin C. The method is simple, accurate and with good repeatability and provide reference for quality control of Epimedium brevicornum. The research provides new valuable evidence for the quality control of Epimedium brevicornum using epimendin B and epimendin C as reference substances. And it also proves that epimendin A is widely distributed in Epimedium brevicornum and is one of the important flavonoids.