STUDIES ON THE SIGNAL CONSTITUENTS FOR THE EVALUATION OF ANIMAL CRUDEDRUGS .3. NUCLEIC-ACID COMPONENTS

An analytical method for determining the contents of 7 nucleic acid ba ses, 6 ribonucleosides and 5 deoxyribonucleosides in animal crude drug s were established. The contents in free nucleic acid components (the ice-cold extracts) and in total nucleic acid components (the heated ex tracts) of 8 crude drugs were quite different from one another, indica ting that these content pattrens could be used as a ''signal'' of each animal crude drug. For example, the contents of inosine in Lumbricus, uracil in Cervi Parvum Cornu, and guanine and hypoxanthine in Hippoca mpus were high. The total contents in each crude drug were about twice or three times as large as the free contents. The main degradation pr oducts by the heated extracts were adenine and guanine. These results suggested that the contents of nucleic acid components could be one of the ''signal'' constituents for evaluation of animal crude drugs.