Hollow fibre cell fishing with high performance liquid chromatography for screening bioactive anthraquinones from traditional Chinese medicines

Hollow fibre cell fishing with high performance liquid chromatography (HFCF-HPLC) is a newly developed method used to screen and fish bioactive compounds in traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs). In the study, colorectal cancer cell HCT116 was first seeded in a hollow fibre and used for screening and fishing active compounds from TCMs. The surface properties of the hollow fibre seeded with HCT116 cells, the non-specific binding between active centres in the fibre and the target compounds, the cell survival rate under different conditions before and after screening, the repeatability and recovery of HFCF-HPLC were investigated in detail. The cell fishing factor of active compound was defined in HFCF-HPLC. We employed HFCF-HPLC to screen and fish anthraquinones active compounds group from extracts of Polygonum cuspidatum, Cecropia obtusifolia L. and Polygoni multiflori radix praeparata. Some of the anthraquinones structures screened from TCMs were identified by comparing to the retention time of the reference substances confirmed by mass spectrometry. The ability of permeable membrane of anthraquinones screened by HFCF-HPLC was further described. Indomethacin was used as the positive control substance. Results demonstrated that HFCF-HPLC is an effective, stable and reliable method to screen and analyse bioactive compounds. Other bioactive compounds from TCMs could also be screened.