Isolation And Purification Of Chemical Constituents From Bark Of Ailanthus Altissima

Big progress has been made in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) study in recent years. Although molecular pharmalogical bases of some TCM have been revealed, most of them are remained under investigation. Due to the relatively lack of knowledge of the pharmacological mechanism, use of TCM has been greatly detained. There is an urgent need in deciphering molecular identities in TMC modernization, for which identification and purification of active compounds from complicated TCM is one of the key works to be accomplished. Compared to the time comsuming traditional methods, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and High-speed countercurrent chromatography (High-Speed Counter-Current Chromatography, HSCCC) have the characteristics of rapidness, high efficiency.Ailanthus altissima, so-called because its leaf smells bad, belongs to the Simaroubacae family. Main chemical constituents of Ailanthus altissima include alkaloids, triterpenes andflavonoid compounds. It has been fully verified those compounds have many biological activities, such as anticancer, antibacterial activities. Many attentions have been paid to the identification and purification of active compounds from Ailanthus altissima. Aim of this paper was to systematically isolate low level compounds from Ailanthus altissima, thus to provide molecular pharmacological base for TCM study.Continous ethanol heat reflux method was used in extraction of Ailanthus altissima, the extract was desolved in H₂O to get hydrophilic and hydrophibic phases. The hydrophilic phase was separated by macroporous resin, and 50% methanol elution gradient was collected. The collected gradient was further fractionated by HPLC, 5 compounds were purified. Chemical structures of the 5 compounds were determined by mass spectrometry (MS), 1^H-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and (13)^C NMR technique. 6.3 mg Ailanthone, 5.2 mg Shinjulactone, 5.8 mg icariinE, and 6mgβ-carboline alkaloid were isiolated from 150 g Ailanthus altissima dry material. Purities of the above compounds are as followed: 97.89%, 99.28%, 96.25% and 97.69%, respectively. To be mentioned,β-carboline alkaloid is a new compound.The hydrophibic phase was fractionated HSCCC method. The solvent system composed of hexane: ethyl acetate: methanol: water (5:5:4:5, v/v/v/v). Three compounds, 12.1 mgβ-carboline alkaloid, 10.2mg 1-hydroxy- canthin-6-one and 10.6mg canthin-6-one were obtained from 150 g Ailanthus altissima dry material with purities as 98.2%, 99.6%, 96.8%, respectively.