Studies On Microbial Transformation Of Fructus Arctii

Fructus Arctii, the seeds of Arctium lappa L (Compositae), is one of the familiar Chinese traditional medicine. The chief effectual components of Fructus Arctii are arctigenin(ACT) and arctiin. The pharmacokinetic study of Fructus Arctii shows that arctiin changes to de-methyl arctigenin quickly in vitro by human intestinal flora. This de-methyl arctigenin becomes arctigenin (ACT) by COMT in the liver. Then arctigenin is taken by blood from head to foot. Actually arctigenin is the chief effectual component of Fructus Arctii. Arctigenin(ACT) has obvious effects such as anti-cancer, anti-virus, calcium antagonist actions and PAF(platelet activating factor) antagonist activity. But the content of the arctigenin (ACT) in Fructus Arctii was very low, only about 0.19%. SO, how to heighten the content of arctigenin (ACT), becomes a hotspot in currently study.Arctiin is one kind of lignin, which will be isomerous with the reaction of acid or alkali, and the activity will be changed. So the Chemistry method to transform arctiin is imperfect. Enzyme method has been reported too, but it' s also imperfect for its costliness. Now we adopt microorganism to transform arctigenin(ACT), utilize the enzyme excreted by microorganism to decompose arctiin. It will solve the problems of the chemistry and enzyme methods.Microbe can produce abundant enzymes which have the great ability of transformation. So the microbial transformation of the Chinese...