The development of Dai medicine is relatively slow, and Zanthoxylum has great economic and medicinal value. It is still difficult to obtain medicinal components from the low-polarity parts of Zanthoxylum belonging to Dai medicine. In this study, we introduced one simple and quick strategy of separating target compounds from the barks of Z. acanthopodium var. timbor by high-performance countercurrent chromatography (HPCCC) with an off-line anti-inflammatory activity screening mode. The development of this strategy was based on the TLC-based generally useful estimation of solvent systems (GUESS) method and HPCCC in combination. This paper presented a rapid method for obtaining target anti-inflammatory compounds. Three lignins were enriched by HPCCC with an off-line inhibition mode of nitric oxide production in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated RAW264.7 macrophage cells, using petroleum ether-ethyl acetate-methanol-water (3:2:3:2) as the solvent system. The results showed that this method was simple and practical and could be applied to trace the anti-inflammatory components of the low-polarity part in Dai medicine.
Keywords: Zanthoxylum acanthopodium var. timbor; anti-inflammatory activity screening; high-performance countercurrent chromatography; preparative separation.