Analgesic Activity, Toxicity and Alkaloid Composition Variations of Fermented Aconitum Carmichaeli Debx

Abstract

Aqueous extract of Aconitum carmichaeli Debx is fermented by saccharomyces cerevisiae where the transformations in alkaloids are analyzed with HPLC. In the yeast-fermented Aconitum chloroform extract, the content of hypaconitine is lessened from 63.6% to 14.8%; the content of songorine increases from 7.5% to 34.5% in relation to original Aconitum. In tail clip test on mice, both original (ED50, 0.25 ± 0.04 mg/kg) and yeast- fermented Aconitum (ED50, 0.44 ± 0.12 mg/kg) showed a potent analgesic action. However, the fermentation process may certainly relieve the toxicity of Aconitum. The LD50 values of original and yeast- fermented Aconitum are about 1.44 mg/kg and 13.80 mg/kg, respectively, but the latter has a greater therapeutic scope than the former. This discovery may provide a way to develop new analgesics.