Chemical composition and pharmacological properties of Flos sophorae immaturus, Flos sophorae and Fructus sophorae: a review

The flower buds and fruits of Sophora japonica are known as Flos sophorae immaturus(Chinese Huaimi,FSI),Flos sophorae(Chinese Huaihua,FLS)and Fructus sophorae(Chinese Huaijiao,FRS)due to their different physiological forms.FSI and FLS are precious resources of homology of medicine and food,while FRS is a valuable Chinese herb,and all of which have been used for thousands of years.There are great differences in the active ingredients,functions and toxicological properties of FSI,FLS and FRS.However,they are often confused and assumed to have fairly similar validity,which is detrimental to their precision development of resources of homology of medicine and food.This review summarized the active constituents,analytical techniques and pharmacological properties of FSI,FLS and FRS,then systematically compared their differences.The article will help people better understand and distinguish the differences and characteristics of FSI,FLS and FRS in bioactive constituents,content of functional components and pharmacological properties,which can contribute to their highly efficient targeted applications in the future food and medical fields.

Comparative study on rare earth elements from Flos Sophorae and Fructus Sophorae

Flos Sophorae and Fructus Sophorae are two kinds of traditional Chinese medicines. In this work, the two kinds of traditional Chinese medicines collected from eleven areas of Dezhou, were analyzed by inductively couple plasma-mass spectrometry （ICP-MS） to compare the content and distribution of 14 kinds of rare earth elements （REEs）. The method was verified by analyzing GBW07605 certified reference material. The results showed that ICP-MS is an accurate, sensitive and reliable technique for determining REEs in traditional Chinese medicine. There were big differences in contents for REEs in Flos Sophorae and Fmctus Sophorae from different areas. The contents of total REEs in Flos Sophorae samples from different areas ranged from 1.0785 to 2.2659 μg/g, while those in Fmctus Sophorae from 0.6826 to 1.0527 ktg/g. The contents of total REEs in Flos Sophorae samples from different areas were obviously higher than those in Fmctus Sophorae of the same area and there was big difference between various Flos Sophorae samples. Interestingly, the higher the content of total REEs in Flos Sophorae samples, the lower the content of total REEs in Fmctus Sophorae samples of the same area. The plots of normalized element concentration versus atomic number showed some characteristic distribution trends. The distribution trend of light REEs （La-Gd） was relatively fiat except a positive Eu anomaly, however, that was steep and discrepant for heavy REEs （Tb-Lu）. The results could provide a valuable reference for understanding the relationship between the curative mechanism, pharmacology characteristics and their geological condition for the two traditional Chinese medicines investigated.