Study On Anthraquinones In Rumex Japounics Roots

As antibiotics, Rumex Japounics has been widely usedin the population. Its specific activity and specificity,however, have not been clarified. The antibiotic activityof Rumex Japounics has been believed to be anthraquinone,as indicated in many literatures. Traditional extractionof Rumex Japounics is carried out by ethanol purification.This method is not efficient because large amount ofanthraquinone have been detected in the remains afterextraction. After thoroughly analyzing the solubility andstructure nature of anthraquinone, we proposed to utilizemethanol to extract anthraquinone and its derivatives.This method offers better efficiency and purity.Hydrolyzing anthraquinone derivatives produces freeanthraquinone which can be analyzed by HPLC-Massspectroscopy. Combining systematic solution separation and silicagel chromatography, we particularly isolated three typesof anthraquinone derivatives: emodin, chrysophanol, andphyscion. After multiple-step purification, thecollected fractions were heated up on the top of the cleanglasses respectively to obtain the dried compounds.Comparing with the rotational evaporation, we can get thecrystal and powder of anthraquinone derivatives in a shorttime utilizing this method. This multiple-steppurification is advantageous especially for the smallscale extraction. The following infrared spectrumanalysis of the purified compounds identified theircorresponding absorbance. Mass spectrometry revealedthat the isolated three fragments have differentretention time. All these results consistentlydemonstrate that the isolated compounds are emodin,chrysophanol, and physcion.Utilizing the isolated constituents, we designed ahalf diluted program to detect Rumex Japounics activity.Candida Aibicans was selected as the target according tothe specific activity of Rumex Japounics to fungus. Theconcentrations of the three compounds were diluted from1/2to 1/512. The broad concentration range enables thedetection of the minimum inhibition concentration (mic)and the minimum bacterial concentration (mbc).