Study And Application On The Quality Evaluation Of Coptis Chinensis

Huanglian (Coptis chinensis Franch.) is a crude drug which derived from Ranunculaceae. The officinal part is the rhizome. Huanglian is a famous traditional Chinese medicine. It has been most frequently used for antifungal, anti-inflammation et al..To obtain the standard for the quality evaluation, seven protoberberine alkaloids were isolated and purified from Huanlian. The structures of these compounds were identified as: berberine, coptisine, palmatine, jatrorrhizine, columbamine, epiberberine and groenlandicine.HPLC finger-print was established successfully as a method for Huanglian from different towns of E'mei with fine precision and repetition. The HPLC finger-print has also been applied to determine the seven protoberberine alkaloids in Huanglian.A systematic quality evaluation of the samples from different towns in E'mei was established. With the method, the contents of alkaloids in different producing areas, different species, different cultivation density, different harvest time, different plant ages, different processing methods and different parts of Huanglian were determined. The method was proved to be practical for the quality control of samples from GAP base of Huanglian.In Huanglian Shangqing pills (tablets) produced by 10 medical factories, the contents of five protoberberine alkaloids (berberine, palmatine, coptisine, epiberberine and jatrorrhizine ) were determined. The chromatography results in more obvious variance in the contents of alkaloids among the 10 samples. Even other herbs or berberine hydrochloride are maybe substituted for Huanglian in Huanglian Shangqing pills (tablets). So the method for simultaneous determination of the five protoberberine alkaloids can be applied to controlling the quality of Huanglian Shangqing pills (tablets) .