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Eleutherosides are important active ingredients of Acanthopanax senticosus, the method for purification of eleutherosides has attracted much attention. In this article, a method for purification of eleutherosides by macroporous resin and the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity of elution fractions from Acanthopanax senticosus extract are investigated. Choosing syringin and eleutheroside E as an indication of eleutherosides, the adsorption characteristics and elution parameters of eleutherosides were investigated from Acanthopanax senticosus extract by various types of macroporous resins. The results show HPD100 provides a much higher adsorption and desorption capacity and the retention rates of syringin and eleutheroside E in the product were 95.43% and 94.96%, respectively. Moreover, the 10-80% ethanol elution fractions were collected from the purification process. We examined the anti-inflammatory activity by evaluating Nitric Oxide (NO) production and the antioxidant activities of eight ethanol elution fractions. As a result, 10-80% ethanol elution fractions showed strong concentration-dependent NO production inhibitory activities and antioxidant activities. The 30-50% ethanol elution fractions are shown to be more active than other fractions for antioxidant and antiinflammatory effects. In addition, no cytotoxicity was observed from the three most potent fractions.

A new method using ultrahigh pressure was used to extract palmatine and berberine from the barks of cortex Phellodendri amurensis. The optimal conditions for ultrahigh pressure extraction (UPE) of palmatine and berberine were quantified by HPLC-DAD with standard samples. Orthogonal design was applied to evaluate the effects of four independent factors (extraction pressure, extraction temperature, liquid/solid ratio and ethanol concentration) on the yield. The optimal conditions of ultrahigh pressure extraction were obtained at an extraction pressure of 400 MPa, extraction temperature of 40 C, extraction time of 4 min, a liquid/solid ratio of 30 : 1 and an ethanol concentration of 50%. The results showed that the UPE method can produce palmatine and berberine with the highest yield. In addition, scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of the plant cells after ultrahigh pressure treatment were obtained to provide visual evidence of the disruption effect. Compared with other extraction techniques, such as reflux, ultrasonic, and soxhlet extraction, UPE shows several advantages, such as higher extraction yield, less extraction time, lower extraction temperature and energy consumption.Moreover, UPE may be also a better way to be applied in industry.