Determination Of Total Alkaloids In Tripterygium Wilfordii And The Reaserch On The Preparation Of The Bioactive Components From T. Wilfordii

Tripterygium wilfordii, as one of the commonly used herb (drug) in the traditional Chinese medicine practice, has been discovered for more than700years. It not only has positive effect in curing anti-inflammatory, and antitumor, but immunosuppressive and anti-fertility as well. Clinically, Tripterygium wilfordii is used to treat autoimmune diseases, and proved to have done so effectively. So far no other traditional Chinese or western medicine is discovered to substitute Tripterygium wilfordii. However, due to its relatively high toxicity a high frequency of adverse reaction on its clinical practice was reported. The main reasons Tripterygium wilfordii is not yet widely used in clinical medicine practice are a.) its current low level of production quality control and b.) there has not yet been any breakthrough on the research of how to lower its toxicity and enhance its medical effect. This study is to aim at the quality control and the preparation of its effective components.1. This research focuses on the content determination method of total alkaloids in Tripterygium wilfordii, which has high biological activity and is the most predominant content of the Tripterygium wilfordii. The ultraviolet spectrophotometry method is proved in experiments to be a very simple, fast and accurate technique of determining the contents of total alkaloids in Tripterygium wilfordii of different preparations. We have studied preparations from different manufacturers and examined the total alkaloids content of Tripterygium wilfordii from different regions. We discovered that the total alkaloids content in products and in different kinds of raw materials, vary enormously from manufacturer to manufacturer and place to place. This obligates us to strictly control the level of alkaloids content in Tripterygium wilfordii, and improve the quality control of its production in order to ensure its safe use.2. In recent years, there have been many techniques in the application of separation and purification of natural products, among which is the technique called high-speed counter current chromatography separation. In using this technique we obtained11effective components of different active ingredient combinations and percentages. We also established the technique of separating and preparing active ingredient combinations of Tripterygium wilfordii in using the HSCCC method. In conjunction with the high performance liquid chromatography technique, we analyzed the chemical composition of different active ingredient combinations in using the established method of chromatographic fingerprint analysis. We also investigated the activity of immunosuppressive and the relealed positive cytotoxic effects of these bioactive components.We have laid down the data foundation for the further adjustment of the combination of diterpene, triterpenoid and sesquiterpene in Tripterygium wilfordii and further research on lowing its toxicity and enhance its effect.