Achillea is a perennial herbaceous plant in the Asteraceae family. So far, various types of chemical components have been isolated from Achillea plants, such as terpenes, flavonoids, alkaloids, etc., among which sesquiterpenes are the most abundant. Modern pharmacological research has shown that plants of the Yarrow genus have antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti infective, sedative, hypoglycemic, lipid-lowering, and antispasmodic effects.
Gaoshan Yarrow is a plant species in the Asteraceae family, also known as a branch of Artemisia, saw toothed grass, centipede Artemisia, etc. This plant has strong vitality and good adaptability. It is resistant to low temperatures, prefers warmth and semi shade, and is suitable for fertile and moist soil. Therefore, it often inhabits shrubs, mountain slopes, valley wetlands, and other areas in northern China. It is distributed in North China, Northeast China, Jiangsu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Japan, the Soviet Union, and other regions. The history of medicinal use of high mountain yarrow dates back over a thousand years. It was first recorded as a top-grade herb in the “Shennong Bencao Jing”. In ancient times, it was regarded as a “divine herb” and “spiritual object” due to its therapeutic effect on curing diseases. According to the 2020 edition of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, this medicine has a bitter and sour taste, a mild and warm nature, and belongs to the lung, spleen, and bladder meridians. Folk people often use Gaoshan yarrow to treat diseases such as external injuries, colds, fever, rheumatism, and joint pain. Modern pharmacological research has shown that extracts from plants of the genus Yarrow have pharmacological activities of lowering blood sugar and regulating blood lipids, indicating the importance of studying compounds with hypoglycemic activity in alpine Yarrow. China has abundant resources of alpine yarrow plants, and their application is becoming increasingly common, which has aroused the research interest of many scholars at home and abroad. Therefore, in order to further study the chemical composition and pharmacological activity of Eucommia ulmoides, this article extracted, isolated, purified, and structurally identified the chemical components of the dichloromethane part of Eucommia ulmoides, and screened the activity of these compounds in the HepG2 insulin resistance (IR) cell model induced by palmitic acid, in order to enrich the chemical composition of this traditional Chinese medicine and discover compounds with good hypoglycemic activity.

 

Modern technology was used to extract and isolate 13 monomeric compounds from the dichloromethane fraction of the Asteraceae plant, Eucommia ulmoides. Compounds 1-4, 6, 8, 10-13 were isolated for the first time from this genus of plants, while compounds 5, 7, and 9 were isolated for the first time from high mountain yarrow. And the activity screening of sugar consumption of these compounds was carried out on the PA induced HepG2-IR cell model. The results showed that compounds 5, 9, and 10 had good anti insulin resistance activity, enriching the types of lead compounds with hypoglycemic activity. After reviewing relevant literature on Gaoshan Yarrow, it was found that there is relatively little research on its chemical composition, and there is very little research on its cytotoxicity and hypoglycemic activity in terms of pharmacology. Therefore, we extracted and isolated monomeric compounds from the plant and screened for hypoglycemic activity. The results showed that some compounds had significant anti insulin resistance activity, enriching the chemical composition of the plant and laying the foundation for subsequent scholars to explore its pharmacological activity.