Bacteriocidal action and side effects such as blood poisoning have been noticed concerning allicin which causes the penetrating smell in garlic. On the other hand, scordinin which is not odoriferous in garlic is said to carry out many useful biological activities including those which are antilipemic and cell generating effects. For the purpose, scordinin has been widely added to tonic-nourishing health food supplements. However, no methods for scordinin assay in such preparations had been presented previously.
As an index substance for the assay, lactic acid, a fixed quantity of which formed after alkaline hydrolysis of scordinin was chosen. The contents in the hydrolyzate were determined by LDH to convert them into scordinin. Substances, such as colloidal particles, which interfered seriously with UV spectrometry were easily removed by ultracentrifugation at 12, 000G. A sodium chloride level of nearly 1% which was formed during neutralization, made little difference to the enzymatic reaction.
The method established can be outlined as follows: samples equivalent to 50mg of scordinin were hydrolyzed in a 10% sodium hydroxide solution, neutralized with hydrochloric acid, and ultracentrifuged at 12, 000G. Enzymatic assay of the contents were converted into scordinin in the sample using conversion formula.
Application of the present method to some commercial tonic preparations proved that the method was satisfactorily effective.