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The purpose of this study was to select food and Chinese medicine which have the ability to inhibit the activity of cholestery ester transfer protein (CETP), then isolate and purify CETP inhibitors. Seventeen materials which might be hypolipidemic were chosen to screen for the CETP inhibition activity. The aqueous extract of these materials were used in the CETP activity test. Results showed that aqueous extract of hawthorn exhibited best inhibition level (15 %). Hawthorn extracts from different solvents were then assayed for CETP activity. The inhibition levels of aqueous, ethanolic and acetonic extracts were 15 %, 27 % and 33 % respectively. However methanolic extract exhibited 12 % activation level . Acetonic extract of hawthorn was therefore selected for isolating and purifying CETP inhibitors. At first, liquid-liquid partition was employed for simple separation, it was found that first, second and third hexane- soluble fractions exhibited 49 %, 12 % and 15 % activation levels, respectively. The methanol-soluble fraction exhibited 74 % inhibition level. The methanol-soluble fraction was then separated with absorptive column chromatography (Amberlite XAD-7). The inhibition levels of the first, second and third fractions were 15 %, 34 % and 14 %. The fourth, fifth and sixth fractions showed activation levels of 205 %, 91 % and 11 %, on the contrary. The second fraction, which had the highest inhibition level, was further fractionated with partial absorptive and partial size-exclusion column chromatograph (Sephadex LH-20). The first, fourth and fifth fractions exhibited 10 %, 20 % and 50 % inhibition levels; while the second and third fractions exhibited 5 % and 42 % activation levels. The fifth fraction was then separated by preparative HPLC with C18 column. The third fraction of HPLC exhibited 91 % inhibi tion level with IC50 = 15 μM. The fourth fraction of HPLC exhibited 93 % inhibition level with IC50 = 25 μM. The chemical structure of these two fractions were tentatively identified as isomers of procyanidin trimer by LC-MS. Further spectroscopic analysis of these two compounds were needed in order to positively identify the structures.
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