A Preliminary Study On The Quality Evaluation Of Radix Glehniae Sold As Commercial Medicinal Materials

Objective: To provide an experimental basis for a reasonable division of commercialgrade and guarantee drug safety by the study on the quality and the comparison of theintrinsic quality of commercially available Radix Glehniae as commercial medicinalmaterials in parts of northern China and through the exploration of the correlation betweenits medicinal grade and interior quality to reveal the effective substance basis of thetraditional grade standard of Radix Glehniae.Methods: The market investigation method is used to investigate the main producingarea of Radix Glehniae sold in parts of northern China.24samples are collected and arecompared in character. The content of water soluble saccharides, polysaccharides, totalpolysaccharides is determined by sulphuric acid-anthrone colorimetry. The content ofWater-soluble extract and Alcohol soluble extract were determined according to theChinese Pharmacopoeia. The contents of Psoralen, Imperatorin, Isomperatorin weredetermined with the method of HPLC. All the results were analyzed with the software ofSAS.Results: The24samples collected from the northern market mainly come fromgenuine producing area Laiyang in Shandong and Chifeng in Inner Mongolia, and somecame from Anguo in Hebei and Fujian without record in data. Most of Radix Glehniaebought is ungraded, and only a little is divided into3grades according to the traditionalmethod. All the sliced herbal medicine has been processed with its peel removed. Thecontent of soluble saccharide is4.545％～22.667％，the content of polysaccharide is26.613％~82.72％, and the content of total polysaccharides is44.42％~90.04％. Thecontent of water-soluble extract is21.05％～43.73％, the content of alcohol solubleextract is4.27％～21.59, and the content of index composition Psoralen is0.000037％～0.007938％. The content of Imperatorin is0.000022％～0.00245％, and that ofIsomperatorin is0.000037％～0.003568％. The component contents are significantlydifferent in different samples. There is regularity between the content and the grade of Radix Glehniae.Conclusion: It is found that all the Radix Glehniae sold in parts of northern China isthe root of Umbrelliferae plant Glehnia littoralis Fr．Schmidt ex Miq. with its skin removed,and there is little with skin. Its appearance and character basically conform to the standardof Chinese Pharmacopoeia published in2010. There is less graded Radix Glehniae.Generally, its length is less and its diameter longer than the standard. Its appearance,character and quality differ. The traits of some Radix Glehniae is more or less differentfrom the present national standards and traditional hierarchy standard. The contents ofsoluble sugar, crude polysaccharide, total sugar, and water-soluble extract are positivelycorrelated with the grade of the medicine. It is preliminarily thought that these types ofsubstances can be regarded as the inner basic material of Radix Glehniae to evaluate itsmedicinal quality and hierarchy as they are the basic substances of traditional medication.While the alcohol soluble extract is almost of negative correlation with the commoditygrade. It shows that original processing has a great impact on the content of coumarincomponent, and the highest value of the content of coumarin component is below0.01%.The content of the three components are of negative correlation with the grade of medicine.Therefore, the rationality and operability are questionable to regard these components asindicators of Radix Glehniae. As a result, further research should be made to look for amore reasonable index composition which can be used for quantitative analysis of RadixGlehniae.