Studies on the chemical constituents and quality evaluation of Rosa cymosa Tratt. root.

Nowadays, the root of Rose cymosa Tratt. (Rosaceae) is widely used in clinic as one of the sources of Chinese herb medicine Jinyinggen. However, only few studies have been done on its chemical composition and quality control. In this study, 27 monomeric compounds were obtained from the ethanol extract of the roots of R. cymosa Tratt., including two undescribed triterpenes, one of which contains a distinctive contracted five-membered A-ring ursane-type skeleton and the other is a common ursane-type tritepene. Then, triterpenoids, the main components of the R. cymosa root, were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed by thin-layer chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography methods. Thin-layer chromatography can identify seven triterpenoids in R. cymosa Tratt. spontaneously. For the high-performance liquid chromatography fingerprint, total of 16 chromatographic peaks were selected as the common peaks of 20 batches of samples, ten of which were identified by reference substances. At the same chromatographic condition, five abundant triterpenoids were quantitatively assayed. R. cymose, as one of the origins of Jinyinggen, was similar to R. laevigata in triterpenoids compounds, which demonstrated that both of them could be used in the clinical medication. These work also laid a foundation for the further research and development of triterpenoids in R. cymosa root.