Bioeffects of the plant Mahonia sempervirens.

Water extracts of mature fruits of Mahonia sempervirens possess four biological properties: hemagglutinin, hemolysin, complement antagonism and antistreptoccocal activity. Partial characterization of the crude extract was carried out by barbital-mediated spectrophotometry, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, thin layer chromatography and interaction chromatography. Fractionation of the Mahonia extract by ionic exchange static adsorption resulted in the quantitative separation of the fruit red pigment with recovery of the entire anticomplementary activity and indicated that the complement inhibitor was different from the aggregating and lytic properties.