SCREENING OF POLYACETYLENIC ALCOHOLS IN CRUDE DRUGS USING THE ELISA FOR PANAXYTRIOL

Polyacetylenic alcohols such as panaxytriol, panaxynol and panaxydol i solated from the roots of Panax ginseng C, A. MEYER have antiprolifera tive activity against various cultured tumor cells. Anti-panaxytriol a ntibody was obtained by immunizing rabbits,vith panaxytriol-bovine ser um albumin conjugates. Although the antibody reactivity was directed m ainly toward panaxytriol, there was a slight cross-reactivity with oth er polyacetylenic compounds, The antibody was, therefore, used for scr eening a large number of crude drugs for polyacetylenic compounds such as panaxytriol, Methanol-extracts from 31 crude drugs were examined. Significant reactivity was observed in 15 methanol-extracts from Arali eaceae, Compositae and Umbelliferae as reported by other investigators . Three out of the 15 crude drugs were selected for determination of t he potent cross-reactive compounds. Four kinds of cross-reactive compo unds mere isolated by silica gel column chromatography, monitoring eac h fraction using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), Among them, panaxynol and heptadeca-1,8-diene-4,6-diyne-3,10-diol were ident ified from Saposhnikoviae Radix, Falcarindiol was newly identified fro m Peucedani Radix. A new polyacetylenic alcohol, epoxy-16-hydroxy-octa deca-17-ene-12,14-diyne-1-al, was also isolated from Foeniculi Fructus . All these polyacetylenic alcohols inhibited the growth of a human ga stric adenocarcinoma cell line, MK-1 cells, in a dose-dependent manner . These results indicate that the antibody against panaxytriol is an e ffective tool for ''screening'' antiproliferative polyacetylenic compo unds.