Preparative separation and purification of two flavanols from Smilax china L. using high-speed counter-current chromatography

Natural products are some of the most important sources of lead compounds for drug discovery. It is an effective way to isolate some lead compounds from complex multiconstituent extracts by combining some advanced isolation techniques with therapeutically relevant bioassays. Smilax china L. exhibits important pharmacological property of anti-chronic pelvic inflammation disease (CPID). With the bioassay guiding in induced CPID rats, high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) was applied to separate and purify some bioactive compounds from the effective solvent extract of the Smilax china L. with the optimized solvent system of n-hexane–ethyl acetate–methanol–water(1:10:1:10, v/v/v/v). 4 mg epicatechin and 10 mg catechin-[8,7-e]-4 β-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-dihydro-2(3H)-pyranone were successfully obtained from 300 mg of crude sample with purity of 98.5 and 95.6 %, respectively. The anti-inflammation of the separated compounds was also studied by MTT assay. The results showed that HSCCC method was successful for the separation of the flavanols from Smilax china L. and suggested catechin-[8,7-e]-4β-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-dihydro-2(3H)-pyranone be one potential compound for the anti-inflammation.