Panax ginseng is well known for its medicinal functions. As a class of important compound of ginseng, ginsenoside is widely studied around the world. In addition, ginseng glycopeptides also showed good biological activity, but researches in this field are rarely reported. In this study, ginseng glycopeptides (Gg) were first prepared from Panax ginseng by reflux extracted with 85% ethanol and the following purification with Sephadex G-15 column. Then, the inflammatory pain models induced by carrageenan and the rat pain models induced by Faure Marin were established for research on mechanism of analgesic activities. It is showed that Gg had an obvious inhibiting effect on inflammation and a significant reduction on the Malondialdehyde (MDA) of inflammatory foot tissue. And there were significant differences between moderate to high dose of Gg and model group in Interleukin 1β (IL-1β), Interleukin 2 (IL-2), Interleukin 4 (IL-4), Tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) and Histamine. The two models can be preliminarily determined that the analgesic effect of Gg may be peripheral, which mechanism may be related to the dynamic balance between proinflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1β) and anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-2, IL-4, and Interleukin 10 (IL-10)). A series of methods were used to study Gg in physical-chemical properties and linking mode of glycoside. The high-resolution mass spectrometry was used for identification of the structure of Gg. Moreover, the structure of 20 major Gg were investigated and identified. The structural analysis of Gg was benefit for the next study on structure-activity relationship.
Keywords: Panax ginseng; analgesic effect; glycopeptides; inflammatory pain; structure analysis.