Abstract: AIM: To study the concentration of morroniside in rat serum after oral administration of Liu-wei Di-huang pills(LDP), to investigate the effect of morroniside on proliferation and differentiation of rat preadipocytes. METHODS: The determination of morroniside concentration in rat serum was taken on RP-HPLC after taking LDP, rat preadipocytes were primary cultured,its proliferation was detected by MTT method,its differentiation was tested by Oil Red O staining. RESULTS: The linear range of morroniside was 250-2 000 ng (r = 0.9991), the average recovery was 95.27 %;morroniside of 8.5-68.0 μg/mL could stimulate rat preadipocyte proliferation,inhibited its lipid accumulation. CONCLUSION: Morroniside could be one of the original constituents migrating to blood of LDP; the method combined pharmacodynamics with determination and isolation of constituents migrating to blood could be helpful for illuminating the active components and mechanism of LDP.

Key words: Liu-wei Di-huang pill, morroniside, rat preadipocytes, cell proliferation, cell differentiation