The Content Of Saponins In Medicago And Its Genetic Variation

Saponins are one of the important biological active ingredients of the medics secondary metabolic compounds. Alfalfa saponins on the biological functions and pharmacological activity of a large number of studies, in medicine and animal production showed a good prospect. It was reported that the saponins had theofficinal activity in decreasing the blood cholesterol and antiathroslerosis. The saponins can be extracted from the alfalfa to be a new-model feeding stuff additive. However, the saponins content which is the main reasons for flatulence in ruminants, livestock and poultry negative, inhibiting the growth of monogastric animals. In this study, we determinate of total saponins by comparing the immersion, soxhlet and ultrasonic extraction methods, find out the optimum extracting conditions, and contents of saponins in different cutting peried, breeding peried and different parts of the plants, and heritability of saponins was estimated.The research results might help to offer the basis to carry out the new techinics of effective planting, utilizing and among breeding some saponins content in alfalfa. The main results were shown as follows:1. Established determination of total saponins of alfalfa:With oleanic acid standard, by UV spectrophotometry of total saponins of alfalfa, alfalfa saponins determined the maximum absorption wavelength of 544nm, the standard curve equation was C= 0.0144A +0.0012, the average recovery was 99.756%, the method is simple, reproducible, high precision advantage.2. Screening of alfalfa saponins extract the optimal conditions:Using the immersion, soxhlet and ultrasonic extraction methods, design different concentrations of methanol, different solid-liquid ratio and different conditions of extraction time and number of orthogonal experiment to extract the alfalfa saponins, find out the optimum extracting conditions of alfalfa saponins. The best extraction process was as follow: alfalfa powder extracted by ultrasonic extraction conditions for three times (20min/time) by using 70% methanol, which is 15 times of the amount of the power.3. Alfalfa different periods and different parts of the total saponin content in:The optimal extraction conditions was used in saponins content on the different periods and different parts of alfalfa, the results showed that: alfalfa saponin content in different parts of plants are very different (p <0.01), and different parts of saponins were as follows: Flower>root>leaf>stem. Different times and different cutting peried of alfalfa saponins also had significant differences (p <0.01), during the growing alfalfa saponins content have gradually decreased. Different cutting peried the level of saponin content in the following order: the third stubble > the second stubble >the fourth stubble > the first stubble.4. The variation of saponins content between cultivars were studied.Determined the content of total saponins in different parts of different cultivars medics plants. The results show that the total saponin content of the difference was very significant ((p <0.01). Annual varieties (lines) saponins content was from 0.6% to0.9%, the perennial varieties (lines) saponins content was from 0.5% to1.1%.5. Estimates heritability of annual medics saponinsDetermination of the annual medics saponins content of recombinant inbred lines. The results showed that: annual medics saponins content heritability was , are medium degrees heritability, the number of control the saponins content genes were more. And the group saponins content showed normal distribution, and its kurtosis the skewness absolute value less than 1, indicating annual medics saponins content was controld by multiple genes, saponins content influenced by environmental conditions, the breeding can not be based solely on phenotypic selection, the saponins content of the choice of indicators should not be as direct.