Determination of serum carbamazepine concentration and metabonomic analysis in rats / 南方医科大学学报

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the effects of carbamazepine on serum metabolic profiles in rats using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Twenty-four healthy male Wistar rats were randomized into 4 groups (n=6) for daily intragastric administration of high-, medium- or low-dose carbamazepine or distilled water (control) for 7 days. Blood samples were collected from the abdominal aortic under anesthesia after the treatment to determine serum carbamazepine concentration using high-performance liquid chromatography. ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR) spectra were acquired for pattern recognition analysis. Histopathological changes of the renal and liver tissues of the rats were also examined.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Steady-state blood concentration of carbamazepine in high-, medium- and low-dose groups were 14.64 ± 1.41, 8.54 ± 1.19, and 4.56 ± 0.64 µg/ml, respectively. Slight liver swelling was found in high-dose group, but none of the groups showed renal pathologies. Compared with the control group, the high-dose carbamazepine group showed lowered serum concentrations of 1,3-diaminopropane, deoxycorticosterone, 7-dehydrocholesterol, betaine, beta-alanine, L-cystathionine, 4-methyl-2-oxovaleric acid, and creatine with increased levels of saccharides, lactate, succinic acid, acetyl phosphate, and adipic acid. Principal component analysis revealed significant differences of the metabolites between carbamazepine-treated groups and the control group. The metabolic profiles showed no differences in the kinds of metabolites although the concentrations of the metabolites varied between the carbamazepine groups.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>Carbamazepine significantly affects metabolism in normal rats. This finding provides evidence for clinical drug monitoring and drug safety of carbamazepine. NMR technique has important values for pharmacodynamic and toxicological evaluation of drugs.</p>

Prospects and Problems for Identification of Poisonous Plants in China using DNA Barcodes / 生物医学与环境科学（英文）

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>Poisonous plants are a deadly threat to public health in China. The traditional clinical diagnosis of the toxic plants is inefficient, fallible, and dependent upon experts. In this study, we tested the performance of DNA barcodes for identification of the most threatening poisonous plants in China.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Seventy-four accessions of 27 toxic plant species in 22 genera and 17 families were sampled and three DNA barcodes (matK, rbcL, and ITS) were amplified, sequenced and tested. Three methods, Blast, pairwise global alignment (PWG) distance, and Tree-Building were tested for discrimination power.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The primer universality of all the three markers was high. Except in the case of ITS for Hemerocallis minor, the three barcodes were successfully generated from all the selected species. Among the three methods applied, Blast showed the lowest discrimination rate, whereas PWG Distance and Tree-Building methods were equally effective. The ITS barcode showed highest discrimination rates using the PWG Distance and Tree-Building methods. When the barcodes were combined, discrimination rates were increased for the Blast method.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>DNA barcoding technique provides us a fast tool for clinical identification of poisonous plants in China. We suggest matK, rbcL, ITS used in combination as DNA barcodes for authentication of poisonous plants.</p>