Bioactivity And Pharmacognostical Identification Of Semen Allii Fistulosi

Cardiovascular disease, principally heart disease and stroke, is the National leading killer for both men and women among middle aged and aged people. Almost 3 million Chinese die of Cardiovascular disease each year, which adds up to 50.2% of all deaths in 2003.Cardiac ischemia is a situation in which the blood flow inside a coronary artery is restricted by a partial or complete blockage. As a result, the heart cannot get enough oxygen-rich blood. The situation is often temporary, and symptoms can include a type of chest pain, pressure or discomfort called angina. It also causes myocardial cell injured and even cardiac function disordered when recurrent or reperfusion attacks. The main symptoms of cardiac ischemia include arrhythmia, blood vessel injured, blood stagnation, cardiac functional incapacitation, etc.The Allium genus includes approximately 500 species, especially in the northern hemisphere. Commonly used allium vegetables include garlic, onion, leeks, chives, scallions, which are used all over the world in different delicacies. Some allium vegetables, which are rich resource of flavone, steroidal saponins, alkaloids, fatty acid as well as sulfur-containing compounds, have been employed for medicine in the traditional medical practice such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, antithrombotic, antitumor and cancer preventing agents. In recent years, extensive research has focused on the cardiovascular potential of allium vegetables and their constituents.Semen Allii Fistulosi is the seed of Allium fistulosum L. (Liliaceae), witch is a centuried traditional Chinese medicine initially recorded in "ShenNong's Herbal". However, there are no reports on chemical compounds and myocardial ischemia activity of it.In order to investigate in the pharmacological activity of myocardial ischemia of Semen Allii Fistulosi, several animal models were evaluated, including the dog models of acute myocardial ischemia, the rat models of myocardial ischemia reperfusion injury, the anesthetized dog model of hemodynamics and myocardial oxygen consumption. The extract was shown to have significant effect of decreasingthe degrees and areas of acute myocardial ischemia, lessening the injury of myocardial cell;protecting myocardial cell against injuries when myocardial ischemia reperfusion occurs, inhibiting LDH, CK from efflux and activities;the fluctuation parameter of hemodynamics being unremarkable before and after administration;obyiously increasing the coronary blood flow, decresseing the VO2 and myocardial oxygen consumption. In conclusion, the extract of Semen Allii Fistulosi was further proved to be active to cure myocardial ischemia.Semen Allii Fistulosi is mixing up with Semen Allii Tuberosi (the seed of Allium tuberosum Rottl.ex Spreng) since they are similar in appearance. In order to provide scientific basis for its identification criterion, we systematically studied on the identification of its botanical morphological, macroscopical characters. Although identification of original plant is an effective method to distinguish the two seeds, it is time-consuming. Macroscopical characters are not obvious enough to differentiate them.As for physico-chemical property, the result of TLC chromatography and UV spectrum are also dissatisfied.Thus, the molecular marker technology was considered for establishing an effective identification method. Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) was carried out to analyze DNA polymorphism of 9 samples of Semen Allii Fistulosi and 13 samples of Semen Allii Fistulosi populations collected from different habit in China. The total DNA were extract from the seeds by CTAB method directly, 32 pairs of primers were used in amplification for primary screening and in which 8 pairs of primers resulted in polymorphic amplification. The similarity matrix was constructed according to the statistics data resulted from the amplification bands on electrophoregrams, and the dendrogram containing 22 samples was generated by unweighed pair-group method of with arithmetical averages (UPGMA) cluster analysis. The cluster analysis revealed that all the samples of A. fistlosum and A. tuberosum were divided distinctly into two main groups. Polymorphic analysis revealed rich intra-species polymorphism (>80%) presented in both species. In the AFLP fingerprints obtained from the amplification with 8 paires of selected primers, the two species shared 17 bands at the same amplification loci. Also 15 unique bandswere observed, 6 of which possesed by A. tuberosum. After being sequenced, all of these specific bands would be converted into AFLP SCAR (sequence characterized amplified region), which could be used to distinguish the species as molecular marker by routine PCR technology. So AFLP technology was shown to be an effective way to distinguish the two species..19 compounds were obtained through column chromatography of silica gel, non-polar macroporous resin, Sephadex LH-20, ODS, et al. On the basis of spectral analysis (UV, IR, EI-MS, FAB-MS, ^-NMR, 13C-NMR, 2D-NMR) and physicochemical properties, 9 of them were identified as arachidic acid(l), palmitic acid(2), linolein acid(3), 8-sitosterin(4), adenosine(5), glucanic acid(6), 2-methoxyhy droquinone(7), S-(cis-l-propenyl)-L-cysteine(8), S-(trans-l-propenyl)- L-cysteine(9). Among them, 1-7 were isolated from Semen Allii Fistulosi for the first time.