DDI-GCN: Drug-drug interaction prediction via explainable graph convolutional networks.

Drug-drug interactions (DDI) may lead to unexpected side effects, which is a growing concern in both academia and industry. Many DDIs have been reported, but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Predicting and understanding DDIs can help researchers to improve drug safety and protect patient health. Here, we introduce DDI-GCN, a method that utilizes graph convolutional networks (GCN) to predict DDIs based on chemical structures. We demonstrate that this method achieves state-of-the-art prediction performance on the independent hold-out set. It can also provide visualization of structural features associated with DDIs, which can help us to study the underlying mechanisms. To make it easy and accessible to use, we developed a web server for DDI-GCN, which is freely available at http://wengzq-lab.cn/ddi/.

Preliminary Study on Hepatoprotective Effect and Mechanism of (-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate against Acetaminophen-induced Liver Injury in Rats.

Antipyretic acetaminophen (APAP) is a commonly used drug that generally associates with liver injury. (-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), an active polyphenol extracted from green tea, is extensively reported to have the potential to impact a variety of human diseases. However, few studies were reported regarding the protective effect of EGCG on APAP-induced liver injury and the mechanism is still unclear. In this study, in-vitro and in-vivo experiments were carried out to verify the hepatoprotective effect of EGCG against APAP-induced liver injury and explore the potential mechanism. Results indicated that EGCG effectively relieved the liver injury caused by APAP, as well as APAP-induced mitochondrial dysfunction. The protective role of EGCG was not only attributed to its antioxidant capacity; but also might be related to the protective effect on hepatic mitochondrial impairment; based on that, EGCG could improve the membrane potential and activities of the respiratory chain complexes in liver mitochondria. Our study casts a new light on the mechanism of EGCG's hepatoprotective effect and suggests that EGCG has considerable potential in developing tonics for relieving APAP-induced liver injury.

Partially Hydrolyzed Guar Gum Modulates Gut Microbiota, Regulates the Levels of Neurotransmitters, and Prevents CUMS-Induced Depressive-Like Behavior in Mice.

SCOPE: Depression is the leading cause of disability around the world; however, most antidepressants have drug tolerance and serious side effects. In this study, it is explored whether partially hydrolyzed guar gum (PHGG) is a safe food that exhibits protection in a mouse model of depression. METHODS AND RESULTS: PHGG is orally administered to mice with depression induced by chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) in two animal experiments (prevention trial and intervention trial) to characterize the potentially protective effect of PHGG. The results in the prevention trial show that PHGG significantly inhibits the loss of body weight, and prevents CUMS-induced depressive-like behavior in mice. The beneficial effects may be associated with PHGG modulating the gut microbiota structure and then increasing the levels of short-chain fatty acids in mice feces and the levels of 5-hydroxytryptamine and dopamine in serum, striatum, and hippocampus. Besides, PHGG in the intervention trial is less effective than that in the prevention trial, but it may have a synergistic effect on improving depression with fluoxetine. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that moderate daily intake of PHGG can contribute to relieving depressive-like behavior.

Polyphenol extract from superheated steam processed tea waste attenuates the oxidative damage in vivo and in vitro.

In this study, tea polyphenols (TPs) was first extracted from tea waste by superheated steam (SS) pretreated ultrasonic-assisted hydrothermal extraction (UAH). The optimized strategy presented extracts with the extraction yield up to 21.19% with a significantly higher antioxidant ability, compared with the one without SS pretreatment. Further investigation proved that the SS suppressed the polyphenol oxidase activity of the TPs extract. The ability to scavenge the free radicals were compared in mouse liver mitochondria. Mitochondrial swelling, mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), cardiolipin peroxidation, and respiratory chain complex (RCC) I-V activities were also evaluated as the index of the mitochondrial oxidative damage. The study supports evidence that the TPs extract exhibited significant protection against oxidative damage on mitochondrial. Furthermore, the effect of TPs on antioxidant ability in zebrafish embryo was evaluated. After TPs pretreatment for 1 day, zebrafish embryos showed a significantly higher survival rate as well as heart rate when facing the oxidative stress. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: Polyphenols from tea leaves have been viewed as an antioxidant additive in food, mainly due to the ability of scavenging free radicals and reactive oxygen species. The results of this study suggest that the SS pretreatment could be used as an efficient method to extract TPs from the tea waste for the prevention of oxidative damage in the mouse liver mitochondria and zebrafish embryos.