Metabolomics coupled with similarity analysis advances the elucidation of the cold/hot properties of traditional Chinese medicines / 中国天然药物

It recently becomes an important and urgent mission for modern scientific research to identify and explain the theory of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which has been utilized in China for more than four millennia. Since few works have been contributed to understanding the TCM theory, the mechanism of actions of drugs with cold/hot properties remains unclear. In the present study, six kinds of typical herbs with cold or hot properties were orally administered into mice, and serum and liver samples were analyzed using an untargeted nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) based metabolomics approach coupled with similarity analysis. This approach was performed to identify and quantify changes in metabolic pathways to elucidate drug actions on the treated mice. Our results showed that those drugs with same property exerted similar effects on the metabolic alterations in mouse serum and liver samples, while drugs with different property showed different effects. The effects of herbal medicines with cold/hot properties were exerted by regulating the pathways linked to glycometabolism, lipid metabolism, amino acids metabolism and other metabolic pathways. The results elucidated the differences and similarities of drugs with cold/hot properties, providing useful information on the explanation of medicinal properties of these TCMs.

Quality comparison on Farfarae Flos from various origins by UPLC based on multi-components content determination method / 中草药

Objective: To establish a UPLC method for simultaneously determining 12 components and evaluating the quality of Farfarae Flos from various origins. Methods: The UPLC method was achieved by BEH C18 column (100 mm × 2.1 mm, 1.7 μm) using a mobile phase made up of acetonitrile (A)-0.03% trifluoroacetic acid in water (B). The flow rate and detection wavelength were 0.5 mL/min and 254 nm, respectively.The column temperature was 40 ℃. Coefficients of variation (CV) were calculated, then PCA and HCA were applied to analyzing Farfarae Flos from different origins. Results: The method for content determination was in agreement with methodological requirements. The results showed that CV values of different components differed greatly, and the hyperoside showed the largest CV value at 0.91. PCA and HCA analysis revealed the wild and cultivated Farfarae Flos were different, and the wild samples contained more chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, rutin, hyperoside, 3,4-dicaffeoylquinic acid, 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid, 4,5-dicaffeoylquinic, and tussilagone. Conclusion: There exist the significant differences among Farfarae Flos from various origins, and their CV values are also different. In addition, the wild samples also differ from those of the cultivated ones. To guarantee the safety and effectiveness in clinical, the impact of chemical differences of different Farfarae Flos on the clinical efficacy should be further studied.

Chemical comparison of different Farfarae Flos by NMR-based metabolomic approaches / 药学学报

1H NMR-based metabolomic approach combined with multivariate statistical analysis was used to evaluate the quality of 21 Farfarae Flos (FF) samples from different growth regions. Principal component analysis showed that wild and cultivated FF could be separated clearly, suggesting a big chemical difference existed between them. Supervised PLS-DA analysis indicated that the wild samples showed higher levels of secondary metabolites, such as bauer-7-ene-3β, 16α-diol, chlorogenic acid, rutin, 7-(3'-ethylcrotonoyloxy)-1α-(2'-methyl-butyryloxy)-3, 14-dehydro-Z-notonipetranone (EMDNT), tussilagone, β-sitosterol and sitosterone. This is consistent with traditional experience that the quality of wild samples are better than that of cultivated ones. The content of pyrrolizidine alkaloids senkirkine also differed greatly among samples from different habitats. The Pearson correlation analysis showed that senkirkine is positively correlated with 4, 5-O-dicaffeoylquinic acid, 3,5-O-dicaffeoylquinic acid, 3,4-O-dicaffeoylquinic acid, rutin, kampferol analogues, to a statistically significant extent. The correlation between the toxic compounds and the bioactive components in FF should be further studied.

Literature review and analysis of the development of health outcomes assessment instruments in Chinese medicine / 中西医结合学报

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To evaluate the development of health outcomes assessment instruments in Chinese medicine.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A comprehensive literature search for all published articles in China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, Chongqing VIP Database and WANFANG Data was conducted. The studies that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to extract information according to a predesigned assessment instrument.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>A total of 97 instruments for health outcome assessment in Chinese medicine were identified. Of these questionnaires, 7 were generic, 12 were condition-specific and 78 were disease-specific. All instruments were suitable for adults, children, and both men and women. These instruments aimed to evaluate the health-related quality of life, signs and symptoms as well as patient satisfaction and doctor-reported outcome. However, the descriptions were poorly constructed for some of the most basic parameters, such as the domains and items, administrative mode, response options, memory recall periods, burden evaluation, format, copyright, content validity, and other properties.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The instrument development for health outcomes assessment in Chinese medicine is increasing rapidly; however, there are many limitations in current methodologies and standards, and further studies are needed.</p>