Abstract: The chemical constituents in ethyl acetate and petroleum ether fractions of the ethanol extract from root and stem of Lycium barbarum L.were separated and purified by using silica gel, ODS and Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography in addition to reversed phase semi-preparative HPLC.According to the physicochemical properties and spectroscopic data,the compounds were identified.As a result,twelve compounds were obtained and identified as N-[2-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-2-hydroxyethyl]-3-(4-methoxyphenyl)prop-2-enamide (1), 3-(4-hydr-oxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-N-[2-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-2-methoxyethyl] acrylamide (2),N-trans-coumaroyloctopamine (3), (E)-2-(4,5-dihydroxy-2-{3-[(4-hydroxyphenethyl)amino]-3-oxopropyl}phenyl)-3-(4-hydroxy-3,5-dimethoxyp-henyl)-N-(4-acetamidobutyl)acrylamide (4), 1,2-dihydro-6,8-dimethoxy-7-hydroxy-1-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-N¹,N²-bis[2-(4-hydroxyphenyl)ethyl]-2,3-naphthalene dicarboxamide (5), (+)-syringaresinol (6), zhebeiresinol (7), (±)-eriodictyol (8), isovanilin (9), 5,5′-dimethoxybiphenyl-2,2′-diol (10), p-hydroxyphenethyl trans-ferulate (11), E-ferulic acid hexacosyl ester (12). All the compounds were isolated from this plant for the first time.The cytotoxic and anti-inflammatory activities of the compounds were evaluated by using MTT assay and nitric oxide (NO) production inhibition experiment.It was turned out that compound 2 showed the IC₅₀ value 17.00 ± 1.11 μmol/L) due to the significant anti-inflammatory activity,which was lower than that of quercetin (IC₅₀ = 17.21 ± 0.50 μmol/L).

Key words: Lycium barbarum L.;root and stem, chemical constituents, separation and purification