Background: Sulfur fumigation is one of the processing methods of Chinese medicinal herbs. This method can be used in bleaching
herbs and controlling microorganisms, parasites and insects.
Codonopsis Radix (
Dangshen in Chinese), dried roots of
Codonopsis pilosula
, is one of the herbs commonly processed by sulfur fumigation. This study reports the influence of sulfur fumigation on the
chemical constituents of the volatile oil of
Dangshen.
Materials and Methods: The volatile oil of air-dried or sulfur-fumigated
Dangshen was extracted by water-steam distillation and
separated by GC capillary column chromatography. The components in the individual volatile oil were identified and quantitatively
determined by GC-MS.
Results: The results showed that 45 compounds were separated and identified from the volatile oil of
Dangshen samples. Among
them, the contents of 23 compounds in sulfur-fumigated
Dangshen were much lower than that in air-dried
Dangshen, such as
4-bromo-1-cyclohexene (6), 3,5-dimethylcyclopentene (7), phenylethyl alcohol (11),
2,3-diazabicyclo[2.2.1]hepy-2-ene,4-methyl-1-(pent-4-en-1-yl)- (22) and cedren-13-ol, 8- (35). On the contrary, the contents of 12
compounds were increased after sulfur fumigation, such as (+)-sativene (25), thujopsene (27), chamigren (30), a-guaiene (32) and 3-
buten-2-one, 3-methyl-4-[(1R,2R,6S)-1,3,3-trimethyl-7-oxabicyclo[4.1.0]hept-2-yl]-, (3E)-rel- (43). Furthermore, two peaks
[bicyclo[3.2.0]heptan-2-one,6-hydroxy-5-methyl-6-vinyl- (17) and bornyl bromide (20)] disappeared and four peaks
[3-(decyloxy)-2-hydroxy-1-propanesulfonic acid (18), α-lonone (19) tetradecanoic acid (42) and methyl cis-9,10-epoxystearate (45)]
newly appeared in the chromatogram of the volatile oil of sulfur-fumigated
Dangshen.
Conclusions: Sulfur fumigation caused significant variations in the constituents of volatile oil of
Dangshen. Further explorations are
needed to investigate how these chemical variations occurred and whether these variations would affect the clinical efficacy and
safety of
Dangshen in human use.