ABSTRACT
@#In recent years, cases of illegal addition of chemical substances into the TCMs and health-care products happened regularly. Therefore, it is particularly important to develop fast, sensitive and accurate analysis methods for detection of the adulterated chemical substances. Through literature survey of relevant papers published in 2016-2017, this article summarizes the application of various analytical techniques for adulterated chemical substances to the TCMs and health-care products with useful information for the further development of new methods and technologies in this field.
ABSTRACT
Cow's milk allergy is mainly observed in infants and young children. Most allergic reactions affect the skin, followed by the gastrointestinal and respiratory systems. Conventional diagnosis is based on po-sitive allergy studies and evaluation of parameters including IgE and IgG1 levels, acute allergic skin response and anaphylactic shock reactions. We developed a cell membrane chromatographic (CMC) method based on human mast cells (HMC-1) for screening potential allergens in infant formula milk powders (IFMP). HMC-1 cell membranes were extracted and mixed with silica to prepare cell membrane chromatography columns (10 mm × 2 mm i.d., 5 mm). Under the conditions of 0.2 mL/min flow rate and 214 nm detection wavelength, human breast milk showed no retention. However, IFMP showed clear retention. The retained fractions were collected and analyzed through matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). Four major milk proteins, i.e., α-casein, β-casein, α-lactalbumin, and β-lactoglobulin A, were identified. Furthermore, these proteins and β-lacto-globulin B showed clear retention on HMC-1/CMC columns. To test the degranulation effects of the five proteins, histamine and β-hexosaminidase release assays were carried out. All five proteins induced HMC-1 cells to release histamine and β-hexosaminidase. Also, we established a reversed phase liquid chromatographic (RPLC) method for the determination of the five proteins in IFMP and the results showed that 90％ proteins in IFMP were α-casein and β-casein. We concluded that cow's milk proteins may be potential allergens and caseins cause more β-casein allergic risk than other proteins. This con-clusion was consistent with other studies.
ABSTRACT
Recent years, the incidence and mortality of prostate cancer have increased dramatically in China. At earlier stages, most diagnosed prostate cancers are responsive to androgen depletion treatment, yet, nearly all patients will eventually progress to metastatic androgen-independent prostate cancer (AIPC), which still has no effective therapeutic method or drug to deal with. 11'-Deoxyverticillin A (C42) belongs to the family of epipolythiodioxopiperazines (ETPs), an interesting class of fungal toxins that inhibit farnesyl transferase. Compounds holding such a property have been explored as putative anticancer agents. In this study, using PC3M cells, an AIPC cell line, we investigated the effect of the compound on apoptosis and explored the underlying mechanism. It revealed that C42 markedly enhanced the activity of caspase-3/7 and increased the accumulation of the cleaved PARP, all of which are the markers of apoptosis. It also revealed that C42 either decreased cell viability or inhibited the growth of PC3M cells. Moreover, we observed that the loss of cell viability and cell growth inhibition induced by C42 were both time- and dosage dependent. Taken together, we indicated that C42 can induce caspase-dependent apoptosis in AIPC cells, and the results presented here will broaden our knowledge about the molecular mechanisms by which C42 exerts its anticancer activity, and future work in this direction may provide valuable information in the development of these compounds into effective cancer therapeutic strategies against androgen-independent prostate cancer.