Study On Swertia Pseudochinensis And Its Substitute

Swertia pseudochinensis is belonged to Gentianaceae. The whole herb has a varietyof pharmacological action and efficacy, but the geographical distribution is very limited.With the development of Swertia pseudochinensis-related preparations and the massproduction, the increasing demand lead to severe shortage of Swertia pseudochinensis’sresources. In order to meet the supply needs in the market, now commercial Swertiapseudochinensis used are mostly other plants of Swertiae which come from different plantsource, moreover the species are complex and different, so the market of Swertiapseudochinensis has very serious problems.Therefore in this paper the comparative study of seven commercial Herba Swertiaeand Swertia pseudochinensis is to survey the actual state of quality, moreover to explorethe plant which are equivalent to Swertia pseudochinensis on composition and content willbe its substitutes.The study include three parts that the microscopic identification, full ingredientinformation and assay.Firstly study the microhistolclgical characteristics of Swertia pseudochinensis andintroduce in detail stem cross-section and powder features, which provide theidentification basis for the Swertia pseudochinensis in this paper. Comparing sevencommercial Herba Swertiae and Swertia pseudochinensis on microhistolclgicalcharacteristics, we find that the No.4sample has obvious differences with Swertiapseudochinensis, the No.3,5samples have differences on some degrees, other samples alsohave small difference which may belong to related plants of Swertia pseudochinensis.All the ingredients information comparison use thin layer chromatography (TLC).The herba will be divided into four parts of the different polarity including petroleum ether,chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butyl alcohol, then establish the TLC conditions of these fourparts. The seven samples of commercial Herba Swertiae have obvious differences eachother on chemical composition. No.1,6samples has a high similarity except a few sportdifferent significantly with Swertia pseudochinensis, should be the related plants ofSwertia pseudochinensis. Only on the main components, No.1,2,6,7samples all have hopeto become substitute for Swertia pseudochinensis.The High-Performance Liquid Chromatography methods is established for thedetection of Swertimarin in this paper. Compareing Swertiamarin’s content of the seven samples of commercial Herba Swertiae and Swertia pseudochinensis, the results show thatthe content is different significantly, No.3sample reaches as high as7.50%which complywith the standard, the content of No.1,6sample is a little bit higher, other several samplescontent is too low or even no.In addition, because the Swertiamarin structure is unstable, thus the stability ofSwertiamarin in Swertia pseudochinensis is studied, including temperature, humidity, light,pH value, in order to provide experiment basis for preservation, related preparationproduction and the safety use of Swertia pseudochinensis.Therefore, considering microscopical icentification, full ingredient informationcomparion and assay of Swertimarin, No.1,6sample are expected to become substitutesfor Swertia pseudochinensis.