Abstract: By solvent extraction,preparative thin-layer chromatography and semi-prepared high performance liquid chromatography successively,a kind of alkaloid was isolated from vaccaria segetalis and its anti-inflammatory activity was explored.Vaccaria segetalis  seeds were defatted with petroleum ether following the reflux extraction with ethanol.Then the residual was further extracted with methylene chloride,ethyl acetate,n-butanol saturated with water.The n-butanol fraction (constituent A3) was isolated by preparative thin layer chromatography with following procedure∶n-butanolethyl acetate:water=4:1:5 as developer,reviewing under the UV light at 254 and 365 nm,and divided to seven fractions (constituent B1~B7).Constituent B2 of high content and simple composition was subjected to semi-preparative high performance liquid chromatography using an ethanol-water gradient system to get a compound (sample I).Sample I occupied the content of 0.215‰ in the raw seeds,and its purity was higher than 98%.On the basis of chemical reaction and spectroscopic methods,the formula of sample I was dentified as C₁₄H₁₈N₂O₂.The chemical name was N,N,N-trimethyl-tryptophan,and the Chinese name was hypaphorine belonging to indole alkaloids.The anti-inflammatory effect of hypaphorine was evaluated by the model of xylene-induced mouse ear edema after continuous administration for 6 days.The study showed that hypaphorine could significantly inhibit mouse ear swelling with an inhibition rate of 52.02% in the dose of 25 mg·kg^-1.Compared with aspirin,hypaphorine had a higher biological activity.In this research,a new process route was studied to isolate the hypaphorine from Vaccaria segetalis.It was also found that hypaphorine in Vaccaria segetalis  had the activity of anti-inflammatory at the overall level,thus hypaphorine was expected to be a candidate molecule to become a new drug.

Key words: Vaccaria segetalis, hypaphorine, HPLC, anti-inflammatory activity