Purification of hydroxyanthraquinones and cinnamic acid from the roots of Rheum officinale Baill.

✍ Scribed by Yanyan Huang; Ailing Sun; Yuanying Qi; Renmin Liu

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 589 KB
• Volume: 31
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1615-9306
• DOI: 10.1002/jssc.200700430

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

A chromatographic method for isolation and purification of chemical constituents from the well‐known traditional Chinese drug Da‐huang (roots of Rheum officinale Baill.) was established by using 12% cross‐linked agarose gel, Superose 12, as the separation media. A two‐step separation procedure is employed. Sixty five percent methanol was used as the eluent for separation of cinnamic acid, rhein, physcion and emodin form Da‐huang crude extract. The fraction containing aloe‐emodin and chrysophanol was then separated by using 55% methanol containing 0.5% acetic acid as the eluent. As a result, cinnamic acid and five kinds of hydroxyanthraquinones including rhein, aloe‐emodin, chrysophanol, physcion and emodin were obtained. The retention behavior of hydroxyanthraquinones on Superose 12 was also studied. The retention of hydroxyanthraquinones on Superose 12 is based on a mixture of hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions between the hydroxyl groups of the hydroxyanthraquinones and the residues of the cross‐linking reagents used in the manufacturing process of Superose 12.