Abstract: Desmodium caudatum (Thunb.) DC, is an ever-green plant widely used in the central and southern China with great economic value for their medical values on fever, dysentery, gastroenteritis, rectal prolapse, snake bites, mastitis, and boils carbuncle. Despite its extensive uses as a traditional Chinese medicine, no systematic research on the identification of Desmodium caudatum has been reported. In this study, traditional pharmacognostical identification including the botanical origin and morphological characters, medicinal material characters, microscopic characters, physicochemical parameters determination and phytochemical screening, and DNA barcoding analysis were employed to establish an accurate and effective identification system of Desmodium caudatum. In addition, the molecular pharmacognosy study was adopted in order to identify the samples more accurately. The ITS loci of the nuclear genome and psbA-trnH loci of the chloroplast genome were selected and evaluated, which were the most variable loci. The study will be beneficial to the development of the quality standard and the identification of species.

Abstract Various traditional systems of medicine enlightened the importance of Premna microphylla Turcz., Lamiaceae, medicinally. The present study was carried out to provide a scientific basis of the identification and the authenticity of P. microphylla with the help of pharmacognostical parameters, which is not done before. Roots, stems, and leaves of P. microphylla were collected for pharmacognostical studies involving macros, microscopic evaluation, physicochemical parameters analysis like fluorescence analysis and thin layer chromatography, in addition with DNA barcodes of internal transcribed spacer and psbA-trnH regions. Transverse section of root indicated the presence of stone cell bands. Transverse section of stem showed the presence of stone cells and vessels. Transverse section of leaf midrib revealed the presence of shaft type of porosity. Microscopic studies of powder revealed the presence of cork cells, fibers, vessels, nonglandular hairs, stone cells and glandular scale cells. Thin layer chromatography of the extract revealed the presence of oleanolic acid in P. microphylla with specific R f values. Identification through DNA barcode showed the sequence of internal transcribed spacer region was novel while the sequence of psbA-trnH region displayed no differences from known sequence. The observations confirmed that P. microphylla has an obvious pharmacognostical characteristics, which will be useful toward providing a reliable basis for identification, purity, quality and classification of the plant.

An efficient method for the rapid separation and purification of polyphenols from artichoke by polyamide column chromatography in combination with high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) was successfully built. The crude ethanol extracts from dry artichoke were first pre-separated by polyamide column chromatography and divided in two parts as sample 1 and sample 2. Then, the samples were further separated by HSCCC and yielded 7.8 mg of chlorogenic acid (compound I), 24.5 mg of luteolin-7-O-β-D-rutinoside (compound II), 18.4 mg of luteolin-7-O-β-D-glucoside (compound III), and 33.4 mg of cynarin (compound IV) with purity levels of 92.0%, 98.2%, 98.5%, and 98.0%, respectively, as determined by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. The chemical structures of these compounds were identified by electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).

Supercritical fluid extraction was used to extract active compounds from the Chinese traditional medicinal D. dasycarpus under the pressure of 30 MPa and temperature of 45 ºC. Further separation and purification was established by high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) with a two-phase solvent system composed of n-hexane-ethyl acetate-methanol-water (1:0.8:1.3:0.9, volume ratio). The separation yielded a total of 47 mg of dictamnine, 24 mg of obacunone and 83 mg of fraxinellone from 1.0 g of the crude extract in one step separation with the purity of 99.2, 98.4 and 99.0%, respectively, as determined by HPLC. The chemical structures of these compounds were identified by ESI-MS, IR, ¹H-NMR and 13C-NMR.