Study On The Fingerprint Analysis Of Leaves Of Cajanus Cajan (L.) Millsp

Background and ObjectiveCajanus cajan (L.) Millsp., commonly known as "pigeonpea", is an edible legume crop grown in Yunnan, Hainan, Guangdong and Taiwan provinces. As a traditional Chinese medicine, the leaves of pigeonpea were used to arrest blood, alleviate pain, strengthen bone, and treat osteoporosis. Among which longistylin A and longistylin C, as well as the flavonoids, like vitexin and pinostrobin, exhibited significant bioactivity, such as anticancer, antihyperlipidemia and antimalarial activities. According to our previous experiments, four stilbenes, longistylin A, longistylin C, cajanstilbene H and cajanolactone A, and two flavonoids, naringenin-4',7-dimethyl ether and pinostrobin, were obtained from the leaves of Cajanus cajan. Cajanstilbene H and cajanolactone A were new compounds. The above compounds were tested growth inhibitory effects in human cancer cell lines, including NCI-H460, PC-3, MCF-7, Hela, HCT-15and KB-V1cell lines. All the six compounds exhibited cytotoxic significant activity., So it should take the stilbenes as the index components of quality control, and put them into the quality assurance system of Cajanus cajan. Meanwhile researches on fingerprint of Cajanus cajan were still insufficient. There was one report about the fingerprint of Cajanus cajan from Hainan province. The result showed that7characteristic peaks were common, but it was only one common compound was identified as vitexin. It was diffcult to get a complete picture of the quality of herbal medicine according to a few active constituents. Therefore, based on the China National Major Projects of Science&Technology (Grant No.2009ZX09103-436), standard fingerprint of four stilbenes and two flavonoids from the10batches of Cajanus cajan was first established by HPLC-UV to provide the theory basis for the application of pigeonpea.MethodStandard fingerprint of four stilbenes and two flavonoids from the10batches of Cajanus cajan was first established by HPLC-UV. The data of the10batches of Cajanus cajan were analyzed by computer aided similarity evaluation software.ResultStandard fingerprint of the10batches of Cajanus cajan was established by HPLC Nine commom peaks in the standard fingerprint were noted and six of them were identified as:the fourth to ninth peaks were naringenin-4',7-dimethyl ether, pinostrobin, longistylin A, longistylin C, cajanstilbene H and cajanolactone A, respectively.ConclusionThe results showed that this method had a good repeatability, and the ratio of common peaks' area of different samples were different. It can be used as a quality control method for active constituents from Cajanus cajan.