Chemical Constituents Of Traditional Tibetan Medicine Caragana Changduensis

Caragana changduensis is a shrub of genus Caragana Fabra.,Leguminosae,mainly distributed in Tibet and Qinghai province. C. Changduensis of which Tibetan name is zuomuxing, has a profound medicinal history in Tibetan traditional medicine. Its rhizome has the efficacy of promoting blood flow, reducing blood pressure and eliminating inflammation, which can be treated with plethora, hypertension, catamenia disorder for internal use while bruises and contused wound for external use. Until now, there hasn't been any reports about its chemical constituents and pharmacological action. Study on chemical constituents will benefit explaining the material basis of the drug. Hence, systematic isolation of ethanol extract of C. Changduensis was carried out. Fifteen compounds were obtained by preparative chromatography methods of silica gel, polyamide, sephadex, toyopearl, et al. Based on UV, IR, MS and NMR, of which twelve were identified as fallows, 10 isoflavones: prunetin(CaC-2), afrormosin (CaC-3), 3'-O-Methylorobol (CaC-4), formononetin (CaC-5), odoratin (CaC-7), cajanin (CaC-8), calycosin(CaC-11), genistein(CaC-13), 5,7,2',4'-tetrahydroxy-5'-methoxyisoflavone(CaC-14), taxasin (CaC-15), 1 chalcone: isoliquiritigenin (CaC-10); 1 flavanonol: liquiritigenin (CaC-12). CaC-1,CaC-6,CaC-9 are being identified, while CaC-2,CaC-4,CaC-13,CaC-14are isolated from genus Caragana for the first time. The inhibitory effects of these compounds on NO production in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and interferon-γ(IFN-γ) activated murine macrophage-like cell line (RAW264.7) were tested by microplate ultraviolet-colorimetric method. Compound CaC-11 and CaC-13 showed strong inhibitory effects on NO production.The study results of the paper provide a scientific basic of pharmacodynamic material foundation and action principle of Tibetan Medicine Caragana, and lay a foundation of futher development of such Tibetan Medicine.