New furofuran and tetrahydrofuran lignans from the flower buds of Magnolia biondii Pamp and their antiallergic effects.

The dried flower buds of Magnolia biondii Pamp (herbal name, Xin-Yi) are a traditional Chinese medicine with a long history of clinical use in the treatment of allergic rhinitis and sinusitis. However, the constituents responsible for its antiallergic effects remain clearly unidentified. In the present study, totally 33 lignans were obtained from M. biondii. Among them, two novel furofuran lignans (1 and 2), two novel tetrahydrofuran lignans (3 and 4), and other 16 known lignans were isolated first time from M. biondii. The antiallergic effects of compounds 1-33 on mouse bone marrow-derived mast cells (BMMCs) degrunaliton were evaluated and results showed that compounds 7, 8, 13, 15 and 18 could significantly inhibited ß-hex release on BMMCs. The results proved that furofuran and tetrahydrofuran lignans were the main constituents in M. biondii and their antiallergic effects were related with suppressing mast cell activation.

Review of the Ethnopharmacology, Phytochemistry, and Pharmacology of the Genus Veronica.

Veronica is the largest genus in the flowering plant family Plantaginaceae and comprises approximately 500 species. The genus was formerly placed in the Scrophulariaceae family, some species of which have been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of influenza, respiratory diseases, hemoptysis, laryngopharyngitis, cough, hernia, cancer, edema, and wounds. This review comprehensively summarizes the current information on the traditional uses, phytochemistry, and pharmacology of the genus Veronica on the basis of articles published from 1970 to 2018. More than 260 compounds have been isolated, and chemotaxonomic investigations of Veronica have revealed that iridoid glucosides - including aucubin, catalpol, and 6-O-catalpol derivatives - are characteristic of this genus. Modern pharmacological studies and clinical practice have demonstrated that extracts or monomeric compounds from Veronica have several pharmacological actions, such as anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative, anticancer, antibacterial, anti-angiogenic, antineurodegenerative, neuroprotective, and hepatoprotective effects both in vivo and in vitro.

Bioactivities of Natural Catalpol Derivatives.

Catalpol, a famous molecule of iridoids, possesses extensive pharmacological activities. Our studies found that compounds with low-polarity substituents at the 6-O position of catalpol exhibited higher NF-κB inhibitory potency than catalpol. However, catalpol derivatives are not much focused. Here this review provides extensive coverage of naturally occurring catalpol derivatives discovered from 1888 until 2018. It covers their distribution, chemotaxonomic significance, chemical structures, and bioactivities from more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, and highlights the structure-activity relationship of catalpol derivatives.

Neutrophil elastase inhibitory effects of pentacyclic triterpenoids from Eriobotrya japonica (loquat leaves).

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Eriobotrya japonica, a traditional herbal medicine in China and Japan, has long been used to treat chronic bronchitis and coughs. AIM OF THE STUDY: Pentacyclic triterpenoids (PTs), especially ursolic acid (UA), have been found as reversibly and competitively human neutrophil elastase (HNE) inhibitors. However, the limited solubility and poor bioavailability of PTs hinder their clinical use. Crude plant extracts may have a greater activity than isolated constituents of the equivalent dosage. In this study, an Eriobotrya japonica (loquat leaves) extract (triterpenoid composition of loquat leaves, TCLL) with enriched PTs such as UA was prepared. The study aims to compare the HNE inhibitory (HNEI) effect in vitro and the therapeutic effect on acute lung injury (ALI) in vivo between TCLL and UA. MATERIALS AND METHODS: An HNEI activity bioassay was performed with Sivelestat sodium hydrate as a positive control. A lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced lung inflammatory model was established to evaluate TCLL's therapeutic effect on ALI in vivo. The absorption of UA in TCLL and in UA alone was determined using a Caco-2 cell uptake model and LC-MS. RESULTS: The IC50 values of TCLL and UA for the HNEI effect were 3.26 ±â€¯0.56 µg/mL and 8.49 ±â€¯0.42 µg/mL (P < 0.01), respectively. TCLL significantly improved the inflammatory cells and inflammatory cytokine production in mice compared with the LPS group (P < 0.05). Additionally, it performed better than the UA alone group (P < 0.05). Moreover, the uptake by Caco-2 cells of UA in TCLL was higher than that in UA alone (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: TCLL has a significant HNEI effect in vitro and a therapeutic effect on LPS-induced inflammation in a mouse model. Both the effects are more efficient than UA. Improved absorption of PTs in TCLL may be one explanation for these results.

Eutypenoids A-C: Novel Pimarane Diterpenoids from the Arctic Fungus Eutypella sp. D-1.

Eutypenoids A-C (1-3), pimarane diterpenoid alkaloid and two ring A rearranged pimarane diterpenoids, were isolated from the culture of Eutypella sp. D-1 obtained from high-latitude soil of the Arctic. Their structures, including absolute configurations, were authenticated on the basis of the mass spectroscopy (MS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), X-ray crystallography, and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) analysis. The immunosuppressive effects of eutypenoids A-C (1-3) were studied using a ConA-induced splenocyte proliferation model, which suggested that 2 exhibited potent immunosuppressive activities.

A new iridoid derivative from the roots of Scrophularia buergeriana.

Phytochemical investigation of the roots of Scrophularia buergeriana Miq. (Scrophulariaceae), resulted in the isolation of a new iridoid derivative named as buergerinin (1). Its structure was elucidated as rel-(1R, 5R, 6R)-(2-oxa-bicyclo[3.3.0]oct-7-en-6, 7-diyl)dimethoxypropane based mainly on MS and 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopic analyses.

A new triterpenoid tetrasaccharide from the root of Scrophularia ningpoensis.

A new oleanane-type triterpenoid glycoside, 3beta-O-(f-D-xylopyranosyl-(1-->2)-[beta-D-glucopyranosyl (1-->4)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl-(1 -->3)]-beta-D-fucopyranosyl-11, 13(18) diene-olean-23alpha, 28 diol (1), along with three known phenylethyl glycosides (2-4), was isolated from the root of traditional Chinese medicine Scrophularia ningpoensis. Among them, compounds 2 and 3 were obtained from Scrophularia genus for the first time. The structure of compound 1 was elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic method including 1D, 2D NMR and HR-ESI-MS.

[Application of fractal theory to spectral signal recognition].

The fractal theory is a discipline that studies a kind of irregular and chaotic object with similarity of its part and whole. The fractal dimension is a basic index mark of irregularity and self-similarity in the fractal theory. The present paper takes the spectral signal according with Lambert-beer' law as the object, introduces the basic theory of fractal geometry in brief, puts forward the method of fractal dimension as the feature of spectral signal recognition, makes use of reconstructing phase space to gain the fractal dimension of spectral signal, compares different values of the fractal dimension to recognize different spectral signal, and gives an example for explanation.