The young fruit of Citrus aurantium L. or Citrus sinensis Osbeck as a natural health food: A deep insight into the scientific evidence of its health benefits

Fruits are consumed as foods or medicines to supply people with nutrition or treat diseases. Zhishi, the dried young fruit of Citrus aurantium L. or Citrus sinensis Osbeck, is one of the most representative health food from the fruit of the Citrus genus. It is widely used in flavorings, canned food, beverages, and medicines because of its outstanding curative effects. The bidirectional regulating effect of Zhishi on the gastrointestinal tract for treating food stagnation or diarrhea has been confirmed. Its active ingredients, including synephrine and N-methyltyramine, have been used clinically as blood pressure boosting and anti-shock drugs. Flavonoids and alkaloids of Zhishi also make it potential weight loss and beauty products due to their definite effectiveness and safety. This paper intends to review the different therapeutic applications of Zhishi and the phytochemicals associated with its medicinal values. Besides, up-to-date information on its botany and analytical methods for the quality control of the medicine is supplied. To conclude, numerous independent research on Zhishi have been conducted in the past decades, but most of them are not deep enough in elucidating its scientific evidence of its health benefits. Further studies may unveil additional pharmacological activities and is beneficial to the mankind.     

Determination of a new chromone from Aurantii Fructus Immaturus by DFT/GIAO method

Investigation of EtOAc fraction from the 95% ethanol extract of Aurantii Fructus Immaturus led to the isolation of one new chromone (1) and seven known flavonoids (2–8). Their structures were elucidated mainly by NMR and HR-ESI-MS, as well as on comparison with the reported NMR data. The final substituent pattern of 1 was defined by comparison of ¹³C NMR data calculated by DFT/GIAO with those of experimental NMR data.     

桂皮和小茴香中砷、铅、镉和汞的测定

用电感耦合等离子体-原子发射光谱法(ICP-AES)对桂皮和小茴香中的有害元素砷、铅、镉和汞进行了定量测定.结果表明,该方法简便可靠,具有良好的精密度和准确度.本文为桂皮、小茴香的种植及入药等方面提供了一些有用的信息.     

Isolation and purification of arctigenin from Fructus Arctii by enzymatic hydrolysis combined with high‐speed counter‐current chromatography

Enzymatic hydrolysis pretreatment combined with high‐speed counter‐current chromatography for the transformation and isolation of arctigenin from Fructus Arctii was successfully developed. In the first step, the extract solution of Fructus Arctii was enzymatic hydrolyzed by β‐glucosidase. The optimal hydrolysis conditions were 40°C, pH 5.0, 24 h of hydrolysis time, and 1.25 mg/mL β‐glucosidase concentration. Under these conditions, the content of arctigenin was transformed from 2.60 to 12.59 mg/g. In the second step, arctigenin in the hydrolysis products was separated and purified by high‐speed counter‐current chromatography with a two‐phase solvent system composed of petroleum ether/ethyl acetate/methanol/water (10:25:15:20, v/v), and the fraction was analyzed by HPLC, ESI‐MS, and ¹H NMR spectroscopy. Finally, 102 mg of arctigenin with a purity of 98.9% was obtained in a one‐step separation from 200 mg of hydrolyzed sample.     

毛细管电泳电化学检测法测定中药枳实和枳壳中的辛弗林和3种黄酮

采用毛细管电泳电化学检测法同时测定了枳实和枳壳中的辛弗林和3种黄酮即橙皮甙、柚皮素和柚皮甙的含量。考察了工作电极的氧化电位、分离电压和进样时间,运行缓冲的浓度和pH值对分离和检测的影响。在优化条件下,以300μm直径的碳圆盘电极为检测电极,检测电位为 0.85 V(vs.SCE),在80 mmol/L硼酸盐(pH 8.45)的运行缓冲液中,被测物浓度与峰电流在3个数量级范围内呈良好线性,检出限(S/N=3)在1×10-4~5×10-4g/L之间,该法简单、可靠、快速,单次测定可在20 m in内完成,已经成功应用于实际样品枳实和枳壳中4组分的测定,样品处理简单,无须预富集,检测结果令人满意。     

Effect of Ligustri Lucidi Fructus on myelosuppression in mice induced by cytoxan

In this study, we aimed to demonstrate the therapeutic effect of Ligustri Lucidi Fructus on chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression and elucidate its mechanism. A pharmacological study was conducted to investigate the mechanism of the inhibiting effects of Ligustri Lucidi Fructus on cyclophosphamide-induced bone marrow suppression in mice. HPLC was used to measure the chemical components. We demonstrated that medium and high doses of Ligustri Lucidi Fructus increased the amount of white blood cells and bone marrow nucleated cells (p < 0.05) in the cyclophosphamian-induced mouse model, and at the same time reduced granulocyte–macrophage–colony stimulating factor and thrombopoietin in the serum of myelosuppression mice (p < 0.01). Medium and high doses of Ligustri Lucidi Fructus can also adjust the thymus index and spleen index(p < 0.05). Ligustri Lucidi Fructus regulates the balance of bcl-2/bax, inhibits the expression of Caspase-3 and meanwhile stimulates the expression of mitogen-activated protein (MEK) and phospho extracellular regulated protein kinases (p-ERK) on the MAPK pathway. Five chemical constituents of Ligustri Lucidi Fructus, which may be related to myelosuppression, were analyzed. The content of specnuezhenide was 0.281%, that of ligustroflavone was 0.004%, that of salidroside was 0.094%, that of hydroxytyrosol was 0.060% and that of tyrosol was 0.069%. The effect of Ligustri Lucidi Fructus on myelosuppression after chemotherapy may be related to its multicomponent and multitarget nature. Ligustri Lucidi Fructus may be a promising potential drug for treatment after chemotherapy.     

在线酸坝富集-毛细管区带电泳法测定槐角中的染料木素

建立了分离测定槐角提取液中染料木素的在线酸坝富集-毛细管区带电泳方法,考察了酸的种类、酸的及浓度、进样/进酸时间比例等因素对堆积效率的影响.实验以20mmol/L硼砂(pH 10.5)作为缓冲溶液,200mmol/L柠檬酸溶液(pH 1.7)作为酸坝,进样、进酸时间分别为180s和45s,在分离电压15kV,检测波长2...     

Rapid analysis of Fructus forsythiae essential oil by ionic liquids-assisted microwave distillation coupled with headspace single-drop microextraction followed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

A rapid, green and effective miniaturized sample preparation and analytical technique, i.e. ionic liquids-assisted microwave distillation coupled with headspace single-drop microextraction (ILAMD-HS-SDME) followed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) was developed for the analysis of essential oil (EO) in Fructus forsythiae. In this work, ionic liquids (ILs) were not only used as the absorption medium of microwave irradiation but also as the destruction agent of plant cell walls. 1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate ([C₂mim]OAc) was chosen as the optimal ILs. Moreover, n-heptadecane (2.0 μL) was selected as the appropriate suspended solvent for the extraction and concentration of EO. Extraction conditions of the proposed method were optimized using the relative peak area of EO constituents as the index, and the optimal operational parameters were obtained as follows: irradiation power (300 W), sample mass (0.7 g), mass ratio of ILs to sample (2.4), temperature (78 °C) and time (3.4 min). In comparison to previous reports, the proposed method was faster and required smaller sample amount but could equally monitor all EO constituents with no significant differences.     

Global detection and identification of components from crude and processed traditional Chinese medicine by liquid chromatography connected with hybrid ion trap and time‐of‐flight‐mass spectrometry

We herein present a chemical profiling method to efficiently process the information acquired by ultra fast liquid chromatography (UFLC)‐electrospray ionization source in combination with hybrid ion trap and high‐resolution time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry (UFLC‐(ESI)‐IT‐TOF/MS), facilitating the structural determination of serial components contained in crude or processed traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Under the optimized UFLC and IT‐TOF‐MSⁿ conditions, over 39 compounds were separated and detected in crude or processed Fructus corni within 25 min. The components were identified by comparing the mass spectra and retention time with reference compounds, or tentatively assigned by elucidating low‐energy collision‐induced dissociation (CID) fragment ions and matching empirical molecular formula with that of the published compounds. Several factors in the processing procedure were examined. The experimental results demonstrate that the chemical reactions that occurred in the processing procedure can be used to elucidate the processed mechanism of F. corni, which is regularly affected by the processing conditions. This study provides a novel approach and methodology to identify the complicated components from various complex mixtures such as crude TCM, processed TCM, and biological samples. It can be used as a valid analytical method for further understanding the processing mechanism of TCM, along with the intrinsic quality control of TCM and its processed product.     

高速逆流色谱法分离制备母丁香和公丁香中的5种非挥发性化合物

应用高速逆流色谱法从母丁香和公丁香中快速分离了3种已知非挥发性化合物,并利用相同方法从公丁香中分离出2种色原酮类化合物。两相溶剂系统A为正己烷-乙酸乙酯-甲醇-水(5:8:6:13, v/v/v/v),系统B为正己烷-乙酸乙酯-甲醇-水(5:8:9:10, v/v/v/v),以系统A的上相为固定相,系统A和B的下相为流动相,利用梯度洗脱方式,在主机转速为880 r/min、流速1.2 mL/min条件下,成功地从70 mg母丁香粗提物中分离得到12.3 mg鞣花酸、9.6 mg鼠李素、17.2 mg槲皮素,从50 mg公丁香粗提物中分离得到5,7-二甲氧基-2-甲基色原酮10.2 mg、5,7-二甲氧基-2,6-二甲基色原酮8.6 mg,纯度均在96%以上。各化合物的结构均由质谱和核磁共振氢谱、碳谱鉴定。利用该方法可以对丁香不同药用部位中的非挥发性化合物进行有效的分离和纯化。