The attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) was employed to acquire the infrared spectra of Radix Bupleuri and its unofficial varieties: the root of Bupleurum smithii Wolff and the root of Bupleurum bicaule Helm. The infrared spectra and spectra of Fourier self-deconvolution (FSD), discrete wavelet transform (DWT), and probability neural network (PNN) of t...

BACKGROUND Bupleuri Radix (Chaihu) represents one of the most successful and widely used herbal medicines in Asia for the treatment of many diseases such as inflammatory disorders and infectious diseases over the past 2000 years. In the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, Chaihu is recorded as the dried roots of Bupleurum chinense DC. and B. scorzonerifolium Willd. (Umbelliferae). However, the widespread de...

Alternative medicinal agents, such as the herb Bupleurum, are increasingly used in modern medicine to supplement synthetic drugs. First, we present a review of the currently known effects of triterpene saponins-saikosaponins of Bupleurum species. The putative biosynthetic pathway of saikosaponins in Bupleurum species is summarized, followed by discussions on identification and characterization ...

Chaihu (Radix bupleuri, Chinese thorowax root) is a favorite medicinal herb in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and is used as a key ingredient herb for many Chinese multiherb remedies. There are 40 species of the Bupleurum grown wide in china, while only two of them, the dried roots of Bupleurum Chinese DC., known in commerce as ‘Bei chaihu’ (Northern Chinese Thorowax Root) and the dried roo...

Chaihu, prepared from the dried roots of Bupleurum Chinense DC (also known as bei Chaihu in Chinese) or Bupleurum scorzoneraefolium WILD (also known as nan Chaihu in Chinese), is a herbal medicine for harmonizing and soothing gan (liver) qi stagnation. Substantial pharmacological studies have been conducted on Chaihu and its active components (saikosaponins). One of the active components of Cha...

Traditionally, determination of inhibitory potency of complement inhibitors is performed by the hemolytic assay. However, this assay is not applicable to the lectin pathway, thus impeding the understanding of complement inhibitors against the overall function of the complement system. The main objective of our study was to develop a specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) as an alter...

Three saikosaponins were isolated from the MeOH extract of the roots of Bupleurum falcatum L.: saikosaponins B3 (1); B4 (2); and D (3). Of the three, compound 3 inhibited the interaction of selectins (E, L, and P) and THP-1 cells with IC50 values of 1.8, 3.0 and 4.3 µM, respectively. Also, the aglycone structure 4 of compound 3 showed moderate inhibitory activity on L-selectin-mediated cell adh...

Effect of ethanolic extract of Buplerum marginatum has been studied on the periodicity of oestrous cycle in adult rats. It is found that the extract at a dose of 50 mg/kg/day when given for 10 days caused significant increase in the duration of metaestrus phase of the oestrous cycle. Other longer durations of treatment also caused similar changes. Percent increase in the duration of metastrus p...