ABSTRACT
Objective: To improve the screening efficiency of the active ingredients in natural products by building up a kind of novel and efficient magnetic nanoparticle-assisted cell membranes (MN-CMs) fishing assay employing specific affinity interactions between active ingredients and receptors on cell membranes (CMs). Methods: The magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were combined with erythrocyte membrane of rabbits to fish active ingredients from water extracts of Angelica sinensis, and the fishing results were analyzed by GC-MS. Results: The particle size of the self-made magnetic beads was about (250.6 ± 3.3) nm (n = 3) with PDI index at 0.010 ± 0.003 (n = 3), and the beads were monodisperse, strongly magnetic and superparamagnetic, the saturation magnetization was 83.4 emu/g. The combination of MNPs and CMs was stable, the maximum combined amount was 1.02 mg CMs/10 mg MNPs, and the combination was able to keep better enzyme activity of CMs in the fishing assay. GC-MS results showed that ligustilide was fished out as the active compound from water extracts of A. sinensis by MN-CMs assay with the retention time at 20 min, and the new established fishing assay could effectively avoid the interference of inactive components. Conclusion: Ligustilide, one of the active ingredients in A. sinensis, can be screened out by the established fishing assay of MN-CMs. The developed fishing method in this workmakes up for some deficiencies of traditional screening method and provides a novel and efficient way to screen ingredients from natural products.