Studies On The Flavonoid Constituents Of The Fruits Of Vitex Trifolia L. Var. Simplicifolia Cham.

Fructus Viticis is the dried and ripe fruits of Vitex trifolia L. var. simplicifolia Cham. or Vitex trifolia L., which are plants belong to Vitex of Verbenaceae family. It distributes mainly in Shandong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong. It is a traditional Chinese medicine be widely used in clinical treatment. Because it has the functions of clearing heat, keeping mind clear and killing pain, so it can be used to treat fever, headache, migraine etc. It is reported that flavonoids are main active constituents in Fructus Viticis. In order to better exploit and make good use of this medicine in Guangxi , in this paper we have made studies on flavonoids in fruits of Vitex trifolia L. var. simplicifolia Cham. from following four parts:1. The optimum technololgy of extracting total flavonoids in the fruits of vitex trifolia L .var. simplicifolia Cham. was studied by orthogonal test. The results show that factors influencing extraction efficiency were as follows: temperature of extraction > concentration of ethanol > ratio of solid to liquid > time of extraction. Extraction temperature and concentration of ethanol are the most important factors in the extraction process. The best extraction conditions are to use 70% ethanol as extractor with the ratio of 1:5 at the temperature of 85oC for 4h.2. We have studied the purifying procedure of total flavonoids in Fructus Viticis. A lot of oils and fats were eliminated by petroleum ether, and some of protein and saccharides were eliminated by polyamide adsorption column also. At the same time, we have measured the content of total flavonoids in crude extract and refined extract respectively. The result shows that the crude extract is 8.86% and the refined extract is 39.9%, the content of total flavonoids in refined extract is more than the content of total flavonoids in crude extract. It shows that this method is a kind of effective method which can concentrate and purify total flavonoids in the fruits of vitex trifolia L .var. simplicifolia Cham..3. Five compounds were isolated from refined extract by silica gel column separation, and three of them are flavonoid. By means of spectroscopic analysis and chemical methods, their structures have been identified as: vitexicarpin (3′,5-dihydroxy-3,6,7,4′-tetramethoxyflavone) (Ⅰ); daucosteorl (Ⅱ);β-sitosterol (Ⅲ) ; luteolin(5,7,3′,4′-tetrahydroxy flavone) (Ⅳ) ; 3′,5-dihydroxy-6,7,4′-trimethoxyflavanone (Ⅴ).