Studies On The Chemical Constituents Of Berchemia Lineata (L.) DC.

The genus Berchemia belongs to Rhamnaceae family, which comprises 31 species mainly distributing in Asia, and there are 18 species occurring mainly in the south of China. Previous phytochemical investigations revealed that flavones, lignans and quinines are largely represented in this genus. Flavones and quinines have been reported to possess anticancer and hepatoprotective activities. The roots of Berchemia lineata (L.) DC., known as"Tie-bao-jin"in Chinese, have been long used as a remedy for the treatment of stomach-ache, gall stones, lumbago and rheumatic arthritis in Chinese folk medicine in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China.In our investigation of chemical constituents from B. lineata (collected in Guangxi province in China), 26 compounds were isolated and purified by the methods of normal-phase and reverse-phase silica gel, and Diaion HP-20 column chromatography as well as preprative HPLC. The above compounds were identified as: (-)-(1′R,2′S)-erythro-5-hydroxy-7-(1′,2′-dih ydroxypropyl)-2-methyl-chromone (1), 5-hydroxy-7-(2′-hydroxypropyl)-2-methyl-chromone (2), naringenin (3), eriodictyol (4), (+)-aromadendrin (5), (+)-taxifolin (6), (+)-catechin (7), (+)-epigallocatechin (8), 5,7-dihydroxy-2-methyl-chromone (9), aloe-emodin (10), 2,6-dimeth oxyquinone (11), floribundiquinone C (12), floribundiquinone A (13), (?)-syringaresinol (14), (+)-matairesinol (15), (+)-lyoniresinol (16), (+)-isolariciresinol (17), fernenol (18), 5-hydroxy -7-(2-hydroxypropyl)-2-(3-hydroxy-2-(4-hydroxy-3,5-dimethoxybenzyl)propyl)-chromone ( 19), 5,7-dihydroxy-2-(2,4-dihydroxypentyl)-chromone (20), (+)-lyoniresinol-3α-O-β-D-gluco pyranoside (21), daucosterol (22), chrysophanol-1-O-β-D-glucoside (23), emodin-3-O-α-L-rh amnose (24), 5,7-dihydroxy-2-methylchromone-7-O-β-D-glucoside (25), 5-methoxy-2-methyl chromone (26). Their structures were determined by spectroscopic analyses and chemical methods. Among them, compounds 1, 19 and 20 are new compounds, compounds 2, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 23 and 26 are isolated from this genus for the first time, and all compounds are firstly isolated from this plant.We have developed HPLC-DAD method to determine and quantify five major flavonoids, namely catechin, taxifolin, aromadendrin, eriodictyol and quercetion, in total flavones extracted from the roots of B. lineata simultaneously. The method is sensitive, accurate and specific, and could provide an important reference to establish the quality control method for this Chinese folk medicine.