Study on intermittent fasting changing fecal metabolism pattern of mice based on metabolomics technique / 药学学报

Increasingly researches suggested that intermittent fasting (IF) can be part of a healthy lifestyle, which can improve risk factors associated with obesity and diabetes. Based on LC-MS metabolomics technology, this study preliminarily discussed the effect of IF on the metabolism of mice under normal physiological conditions by detecting the fecal metabolites. All experiments were approved by the Animal Research Committee of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Animal welfare and the animal experimental protocols were strictly consistent with related ethics regulations of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The mice were subjected to intermittent fasting for 10 weeks by fasting for 24 hours on alternate days, and their feces at 5 and 10 weeks were collected. The results show that the weight, food and water intake was not significant altered in mice with IF, but fasting blood glucose level was decreased. We found that fecal metabolites change was present at 5-week, being more prominent in 10-week. Relative to the control mice, we detected 17 and 108 metabolites in two time points, respectively. These metabolites were mainly enriched in the pathways of linoleic acid metabolism and bile acid biosynthesis. We further found that 10 metabolites may be a close correlation with IF, which had the same change trend at two time points. In conclusion, the present study provides a new approach to study the metabolism mechanism in IF treatment of related diseases.

Determination of six effective ingredients in Imperatae Rhizoma concentrated granules by ultra-performance liquid chromatography using two internal references / 药学学报

To simultaneously determine the contents of p-coumaric acid, chlorogenic acid, 5-caffeoylquinic acid, 4-caffeoylquinic acid, caffeic acid and ferulic acid in Imperatae Rhizoma concentrated granules, an ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) with two internal references method (TIRM) was established and validated. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a ZORBAX RRHD Eclipse Plus C18 column (2.1 mm × 100 mm, 1.8 µm) using 1.7 mmol·L-1 oxalic acid in water and methanol as mobile phase. The flow rate was 0.4 mL·min-1 and the column temperature was set as 35 ℃. The relative correction factors (RCFs) of caffeic acid and ferulic acid using p-coumaric acid as internal reference were calculated and the RCFs of 4-caffeoylquinic acid and 5-caffeoylquinic acid were calculated using chlorogenic acid as the internal reference. The TIRM was fully validated for linearity, accuracy, repeatability, stability and recovery so that it could be compared with the external standard method (ESM). The RCFs of 5-caffeoylquinic acid, 4-caffeoylquinic acid, caffeic acid, and ferulic acid were 1.069, 1.022, 1.368, and 1.493, respectively. The TIRM and ESM were used to determine the contents of six ingredients in Imperatae Rhizoma concentrated granules from different manufacturers and the variation between results was within acceptable limits. In conclusion, the newly established TIRM allowed simultaneous determination of six ingredients (p-coumaric acid, chlorogenic acid, 5-caffeoylquinic acid, 4-caffeoylquinic acid, caffeic acid, ferulic acid) in Imperatae Rhizoma concentrated granules, providing support for the quality control of this traditional Chinese medicine.

Quality control of red ginseng based on the ratio of ginsenosides Ro/Re / 药学学报

Ginsenoside Ro decreased measures of inflammation, aging, oxidants and thrombus formation in a previous study. To measure ginsenoside Ro content in red ginseng from different years, an optimized extraction method was developed to determine ginsenoside Rg1, Re, Rb1 and Ro content by HPLC in 43 batches of red ginseng from different origins, growing years and manufacturers. The results indicate that the best extraction method was to ultrasonify a 1 g sample in 70% methanol for 50 min. The total running time of the optimized gradient was 50 min using a C18 core-shell column and was half the time described in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, 2015 edition. The separation resolution of all of targeted compounds was greater than 1.6. The peak shape of ginsenoside Ro was optimal when the mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile and water with 0.1% phosphoric acid. The content of ginsenoside Ro was in the range of 0.11% to 0.43%, and the average content was 0.26%, which was higher than that of ginsenoside Rg1 and Re. The ratio of ginsenoside Ro and Re as a threshold could be used to discriminate red ginseng from different growing years; in addition, 100%, 94.4% and 46.6% of red ginseng from six, five and four years exceeded the threshold of 1.3. Our optimized analytical method for characterization of red ginseng is convenient and shortens the assay time.

Quantification of hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloid adonifoline in traditional Chinese medicine preparations containing Senecionis Scandentis Herba / 中国中药杂志

Pyrrolizidine alkaloids(PAs) are a kind of natural toxins, which can cause severe hepatotoxicity, pulmonary toxicity, genotoxicity, neurotoxicity, embryotoxicity and even death. Therefore, international organizations and countries such as World Health Organization have paid great attention to herbal medicines and preparations containing PAs. PAs are widely distributed in Chinese herb medicines and contained in hundreds of traditional Chinese medicine preparations. The content of adonifoline, the main PAs in Senecionis Scandentis Herba, shall be less than 0.004% in herbal medicines as described in Chinese pharmacopeia. However, there is no guidance in preparations which contain Senecionis Scandentis Herba. In this study, 14 preparations were analyzed by an UPLC-MS method. Among them, 8 preparations were found to contain adonifoline much higher than the content limits of such countries as Germany, Netherlands and New Zealand. And the highest contents of adonifoline were found in Qianbai Biyan Tablets and Qianbai Biyan Capsules, which are officially recorded in Chinese Pharmacopeia. The contents of adonifoline varied in different batches of the same preparations. The highest content was 156.10 μg·g~(-1) Qianbai Biyan Tablets, whose daily intake of adonifoline was up to 1 030.26 μg according to the recommended dosage of the preparation. Our results showed the potential risk of these preparations, and the content limit of adonifoline shall be inspected Chinese medicine preparations containing Senecionis Scandentis Herba.

Determination of dencichine in Sanqi tablet by HILIC / 中国中药杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To develop an HILIC method for determination of dencichine in Sanqi tablet and evaluate the quality of Sanqi tablet of different hatches from various manufactures in the market.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>The chromatographic separation was conducted on a Thermo HILIC column (4.6 mm x 250 mm, 5 microm) kept at 25 degrees C with acetonitrile and 0.1% H3PO4 (60:40) as the mobile phase. The flow rate was set at 1 mL x min(-1) and the detection wavelength was set at 213 nm.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>The contents of dencichine in Sanqi tablet ranged from 1.60 to 4.31 mg x g(-1).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The well established method was successfully applied to determine dencichine in Sanqi tablet. The results demonstrated that this method was simple, accurate and could be applied for quality control of Sanqi as well as its associated preparations.</p>