Isolation And Purification Of The Chemical Constituents From The Flos Magnoliae

Owing to rapid development of life sciences and people’s tends to nature; there comes the great chance for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Isolation, characterization and active compounds identification are core elements in TCM. Traditionally, purification of active compounds from TCM has the characteristics of time comsuming and complication, which greatly affect the popularization and internationalization of TCM, so there is an urgent need in the use of modern techniques in TCM modernization. In the present paper, chemical constituents of Flos Magnoliae were isolated by using macroporous resin, preparative high performance liquid chromatography (preparative HPLC) and high-speed countercurrent chromatography (High-Speed Counter-Current Chromatography and HSCCC) medthods. The optimized method has the characteristic of timesaving, high recovery and high purity (>95%).Traditioanlly, the dried flower buds of magnoliaceae plant, Magnolia biondii Pamp, Magnolia sprengeri Pamp or Magnoliata Desr called Flos Magnoliae, is mainly used for the treatment of cold, headache, nasal obstruction, nasosinusitis, running nose, antihypertension, etc. The magnolia is not only a valuable spice and chemical raw materials, but also an ornamental green plant. Because of its multiple biological activities, more and more attentions have been paid to magnolia in recent years. There many different kinds of magnolia, chemical constituents among these magnolias are significant. There are still limited reports in systematically characterization chemical constituents of magnolia. In the present paper, we did a preliminary study of the chemical composition of Magnolia biondii Pamp.Crude extract of magnolia was prepared by95%ethonel continuously extraction. The crude extrac was futher fractionated by using silica gel column chromatography method. Preparative High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and High-Speed Counter-Current Chromatography (HSCCC) methods were used in sigle compound purification. So far, nine compounds (compounds I-IX) were purified by using HPLC method, and one compound (compoundIV) was purified by sing HSCCC method. Chemical structures of the compounds are:(7S*,8S*,8’S*)-3,4,3’,4’-tetramethoxy-9,7’-dihydroxy-8.8’,7.0.9’-lignan(Ⅰ), biondnoid I(Ⅱ), eudesin(Ⅲ), magnolin(Ⅳ), yangambin(Ⅴ), epimagnolin A(Ⅵ), kobuson (Ⅶ), fargesin(Ⅸ), respectively as determined by’H-NMR、13~C-NMR and MS methods. Interestingly, all the compounds purified belong to ligan compound family excepr for the compound Ⅱ. In conclusion, we setup a protocol that fits for lignan compouds purification. High purity epimagnolin A was isolated by using the HSCCC method, which was the first time isolated by using HSCCC techenique.