Phytochemical components and bioactive effects of traditional Chinese medicine and the relationship with their characteristics

Eighty-eight Traditional Chinese Medicines were extracted with 50% methanol, and relationships between Chinese characteristics of nature (hot, warm, cool and cold), flavors (sour, bitter, sweet, pungent and salty) v.s. phytochemical contents and bioactives effects were explored by nonparametric correlation analysis. The individual phytochemical components of 50% MeOH extracts were listed below: total polyphenol, 97.68µg gallic acid equivalent/mg (15.18˜606.86); total flavonl, 28.53µg cathechin/mg (0.47˜247.41), total saponin, 110.16µg diosgenin/mg (20.44˜254.74) and total coumarin, 110.16µg coumarin/mg (33.27˜1875.5) in 88 kinds of TCMs. According to the TCM characteristics, the bitter and pungent groups were rich in saponin and strong anti-Staphylococcus aureus; the warm and cold groups, too. There was good relationship found between the anti-Staphylococcus aureus and total saponin contents. (R=0.519) The results supported the correlation between natures and flavors in TCMs, which means specific natures and flavors usually match to each other. As the data shown, the herb medicine with cold nature often has bitter taste, and also, the warm-nature medicine has pungent flavor in most cases. On the other hand, total Polyphenol was less in hot and sweet groups and didn't scavenge DPPH radical effects. The results indicated the high correlation between total polyphenol and DPPH scavenge effects. (R=0.763)