[Systematic studies on quality of main species of Herba epimedii].
OBJECTIVE
To achieve the quality control of Herba Epimedii, and to evaluate the quality of medical materials of the 8 official species including the 5 species recorded in 'Chinese Pharmacopoeia' including Epimedium brevicornum, E. sagittatum, E. pubescens, E. koreanum and E. wushanense, and the 3 other species (E. acuminatum, E. myrianthum, E. leptorrhizum) recorded in 'Guizhou Quality Criteria for Traditional Chinese Medical Material and Nationality Medical Material', and E. pseudowushanuse (new species) which is used as E. wushanense for a long time.


METHODS
The contents of icariin and total flavonoids of 102 samples of 9 officinal species of Herba Epimedii were determined by HPLC and UV, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
The contents of icariin in about 30% of the samples of the 5 species recorded in 'Chinese Pharmacopoeia' were lower than 0.5%, which is acceptable quality recorded in 'Chinese Pharmacopoeia'. Refering the literatures, we suggested the total contents of epimedin A, B, C and icariin (epi-medium multi-glycosides, ABCI) should be established as a new standard instead of the content of icariin. The content of total flavonoids, not less than 5.0%, and ABCI, not less than 1.3%, could be used to evaluate the quality of the above medical materials efficiently.
Pei
Li-Kuan
LK
Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100094, China.
Huang
Wen-Hua
WH
He
Tian-Gu
TG
Guo
Bao-Lin
BL
D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000032:analysis / Q000592:standards; D034181:Epimedium / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification; D005419:Flavonoids / Q000032:analysis*; D044948:Flavonols / Q000032:analysis*; D010598:Pharmacognosy; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification; D011786:Quality Control; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012621:Seasons; D013045:Species Specificity
D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal; D005419:Flavonoids; D044948:Flavonols; C529106:epimedin A; C106053:epimedin B; C106054:epimedin C; C056599:icariin