Eleutherococcus trifoliatus (Araliaceae) is called Baile or Lecai in China. E. trifoliatus is a medicinal and edible plant widely used in folk traditions. As a TCM, the dried herb of this species can remove damp heat and detoxicity, cure rheumatism, remove blood stasis, relieve pain, and alleviate cough and asthma symptoms. Many chemical compounds have been reported including diterpenoids, triterpenoids, phenylpropanoids, flavonoids, lignans, caffeoyl quinic acids, steroids, essential oils, etc., in which flavonoids, saponins, and caffeoyl quinic acids are the most bioactive components. In vitro and in vivo pharmacological experiments demonstrated that E. trifoliatus has anti-inflammatory, hypoglycemic, anticancer, antioxidant, antibacterial, anti-hyperalgesic, anti-fatigue, analgesic, and hemostatic effects. Here we reviewed E. trifoliatus in phytochemistry, analysis methods, and pharmacology.

OBJECTIVE：To establish a method for simultaneous determination of two flavonoids （rutin and kaempferol-3-O- rutinoside） and four phenoquinones （dihydrotanshinone Ⅰ，cryptotanshinone，tanshinone Ⅰ and tanshinoneⅡA） in Huoxue cuyu capsules. METHODS：HPLC method was adopted. The determination was performed on Welch Ultimate XB-C18 column with mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile-0.1％phosphoric acid solution（gradient elution）at the flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The column temperature was set at 20 ℃，and detection wavelength was set at 270 nm. The sample size was 10 μL. RESULTS：The linear range of rutin，kaempferol-3-O-rutinoside，dihydrotanshinone Ⅰ，cryptotanshinone，tanshinone Ⅰ and tanshinoneⅡA were 172.13-860.66 μg/mL（r＝0.999 7），15.33-76.66 μg/mL（r＝0.999 8），12.81-64.06 μg/mL（r＝0.999 3），5.90-29.52 μg/mL（r＝0.999 3），5.12-25.60 μg/mL（r＝0.999 2），6.71-33.57 μg/mL（r＝0.999 7），respectively. The limits of detection were 0.08，0.01，0.01，0.01，0.01，0.01 μg/mL. The limits of quantitation were 0.27，0.02，0.03，0.03，0.03，0.03 μg/mL，respectively. RSDs of precision，stability test and repetition tests were all lower than 2.0％（n＝6）. The recoveries were 97.54％-100.25％（RSD＝1.07％，n＝6），96.90％-101.91％（RSD＝1.73％，n＝6），96.24％-102.89％（RSD＝2.32％，n＝6），97.04％-102.18％（RSD＝1.82％，n＝6），95.06％-97.73％（RSD＝1.18％，n＝6），95.59％-101.40％（RSD＝2.29％，n＝6），respectively. CONCLUSIONS：The method is sensitive，rapid，simple and has good reproducibility. It can be used for simultaneous determination of rutin， kaempferol-3-O-rutinoside， dihydrotanshinone Ⅰ， cryptotanshinone， tanshinone Ⅰ， tanshinoneⅡA in Huoxue cuyu capsules.