Abstract: Berberis julianae contains berberine, jatrorrhizine and others, which are useful antibacterial drug in China. However, the growth of B. julianae is too slow, Authors tried to produce berberine from cell cultures of B. julianae, but obtained jatrorrhizine instead. The amount of jatrorrhizine in the cell cultures is much more than that in original plant. Callus derives from the leaf of B. julianae was grown at 25±2 ℃ on B5 medium containing 2,4-D(1 mg/L), KT (0.1 mg/L), agar (0.8%), sucrose (2%) and st,bcultured at intervals of 4–6 weeks. And then callus was transferred into liquid medium and agitated by gyrotory shaker at the speed of 120 rpm. After culturing in the liquid medium for 20 days cells were collected through filtering. Fresh cells were extracted with dilutive H2SO4 solution. H2SO4 extracts were acidified with HCI. After adding NaC1 to the HC1 extracts the orange crystals were obtained and recrystallized from ethanol. The orange crystal was identified with jatrorrhizine by HPLC, UV, IR, MS and NMR.

Key words: Berberis julianae Schneid, Jatrorrhizine, Cell culture