The Chemical Composition Of The Different Sources Of Licorice And Its Related Efficacy

The quality evaluation of Chinese material medica has always been the nodus and emphasis both in the research and application. However, most research on quality evaluation is focusing on the chemical constituents of Chinese material medica. A more reasonable quality evaluation system should reflect directly the pharmacological action instead of simple chemical constituents'contents. The thesis studied licorice as an example. The chemical constituents of licorice from different resources were studied and the relevant hepatoprotective activity was studied in vitro and in vivo. The antibacterial activity (ABA) of licorice from different sources was also studied. And artificial neural network (ANN) was used to build and test the components-pharmacological effect between fingerprint and ABA of licorice. The relation between chemical constituents and pharmacological effect were revealed these ways. A reasonable evaluation system of licorice quality was discussed and a research thought route and method of quality evaluation system about Chinese material medica was provided. The results were as follows:1 .. The contents and ratio of glycyrrhizin, liquiritin and isoliquiritigenin in licorice varied significantly due to different producing places, ages and growth way, etc. The fingerprint of licorice from different sources had high similarity degree. However, the fingerprint could have certain difference due to ages, producing place, species. The main peak areas and their ratio of licorice from different sources showed different.2.The hepatoprotective acivity of licorice from different sources varied due to the producing place, culture way, etc. The content of a single constituent showed complicated dose effect relation of the hepatoprotective activity of licorice. Liquiritin/glycyrrhizin and isoliquiritigenin/glycyrrhizin showed positive correlation of the hepatoprotective activity of licorice. Isoliquiritigenin/glycyrrhizin played a more important role than isoliquiritigenin/ liquiritin on the hepatoprotective activity of licorice.3. Glycyrrhizin, liquiritin and isoliquiritigenin had hepato- protective activity on HL-7702 cells injury induced by AAP. The effect increased while the concentration of a constituent improved. But the effect of glycyrrhizin, liquiritin decreased after the concentration was higher than the maximum effect concentration. Glycyrrhizin had the highest efficacy and valency among the three. Minimal effective concentration (MEC) of isoliquiritigenin was higher than MEC of glycyrrhizin but a little lower than that of liquiritin.4 .The matching application of glycyrrhizin, liquiritin and isoliquiritigenin had better hepatoprotective activity than a single one. The matching application could improve the valency of liquiritin and the efficacy of the three constituents. The in vitro study showed that the matching application was most effective when the ratio of glycyrrhizin, liquiritin and isoliquiritigenin was 1:4.01:0.11 or 1:10.38:0.11.The superiority matching application had effective hepatoprotective activity in vivo.5. Licorice from different sources had inhibitory action on Bacillus aeruginosus (ATCC27853), Escherichia coli (ATCC25922) and Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC25923). Among the inhibitory action of licorice on the three kind of bacteria, the strongest effect was the inhibitory action on Staphylococcus aureus and the lowest was the inhibitory action on Escherichia coli. The significant inhibitory action difference of licorice from different producing place was not observed. Either did 3 or 4 years old cultivated licorice and other years old cultivated licorice. The inhibitory action of wild licorice on Escherichia coli was significantly stronger than that of cultivated licorice. The tendency could be observed on Bacillus aeruginosus and Staphylococcus aureus.6. Back propagation (BP) network of Neurosolution for excel could be used to set up the component-effect relationship model of licorice. The best work of training and testing was as follows: The Linear correlation coefficient of output MIC and desired MIC of licorice's inhibitory action on Bacillus aeruginosus and Staphylococcus aureus was 0.8700 and 0.9054. That on Escherichia coli was 0.3835. Different component played different roles in the inhibitory action of licorice on different bacteria.In short, the difference existed in the effect of the licorice from different sources showed that the quality of those licorices were different. The ratio of constituents in licorice had some relationship with the quality of licorice. Different constituent played different role in the different effect of licorice. The relation of the fingerprint and effect of licorice could be set up a component-effect model by ANN.The research characteristic and innovation of this thesis are as follows:(1) A HL-7702 cell injury model induced by AAP was set up(2) The active component ratio was observed to play an important role in the effect of licorice. (3) The dose-effect of glycyrrhizin, liquiritin and isoliquritigenin was determined pharmacodynamics evaluation method of licorice quality was discussed. (4) The relationship model of constituents and effect in licorice by ANN was set up.