Studies On The Chemical Compounds Of Huanglianjiedu Decoction And The Active Components On Senile Dementia

Huanglianjiedu Decoction is a traditional Chinese herbal prescription, which was firstly recorded in A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies, by Ge Hong in the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the 3rd Century A.D. It is a heat clearing and detoxicating formula, which is used to clear pathogenic fire. The formula consists of four crude drugs:Rhizoma coptidis, Radix scutellariae, Cortex phellodendri and Fructus gardeniae and was widely used both in China and Japan.Nowadays, there are a lot of reaserches on Huanglianjiedu Decoction and it's effects on senile dementia. But only little research focuses on the active compounds.In this study, ten major compounds were isolated from the n-butanol fraction of the water extract of Huanglianjiedu Decoction, the structures of these compounds were studied by chemical and spectral analysis, such as IR,NMR,UV and MS.The acetylcholinesterase inhibitory and antioxidant activity effect of the formula HLJDT, the single herbs and the major compounds of HLJDT were determined and compared by acetylcholinesterase inhibition and antioxidant assay. The formula HLJDT had a better antioxidant activity effect than the single herbs, except for Radix Scutellaria which is rich in polyphenolic compounds, the most active compound is baicalin; The results also show that the herb with the best effect on AChE inhibition is Coptidis Rhizoma and the pure compound is berberine; it can be concluded that alkaloid compounds have best effect the inhibitory activity of the formula and flavanoids compounds on the antioxidant activity.Traumatic models using PC 12 cells and primary neurons cells treated with glutamate were applied to investigate the cell protective effect of HLJDT and its major compounds. The cell and chondriosome viability were analyzed by the JC-1 fluorescent method, the trypan blue exclusion method and MTT method. All of the single pure compounds do not show any protective effect, but the mixed pure compounds showed protective effect on PC 12 cell and cultured primary neurons treated by glutamate at various concentration from 1-0.1μg/ml in dose-depend manner. This results can be used to illuminate the function of complex prescription.