Unraveling the mystery of efficacy in Chinese medicine formula: New approaches and technologies for research on pharmacodynamic substances

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is the key to unlock treasures of Chinese civilization. TCM and its compound play a beneficial role in medical activities to cure diseases, especially in major public health events such as novel coronavirus epidemics across the globe. The chemical composition in Chinese medicine formula is complex and diverse, but their effective substances resemble “mystery boxes”. Revealing their active ingredients and their mechanisms of action has become focal point and difficulty of research for herbalists. Although the existing research methods are numerous and constantly updated iteratively, there is remain a lack of prospective reviews. Hence, this paper provides a comprehensive account of existing new approaches and technologies based on previous studies with an in vitro to in vivo perspective. In addition, the bottlenecks of studies on Chinese medicine formula effective substances are also revealed. Especially, we look ahead to new perspectives, technologies and applications for its future development. This work reviews based on new perspectives to open horizons for the future research. Consequently, herbal compounding pharmaceutical substances study should carry on the essence of TCM while pursuing innovations in the field.     

Rewiring cellular metabolism for heterologous biosynthesis of Taxol

Abstract

Taxol is one of the anticancer drugs synthesized naturally in the evergreen Taxus brevifolia forest tree belonging to the yew family (Taxaceae) growing on the Pacific. There are reportedly evidence for treating ovarian, breast and lung cancers through this drug given its unique structural and functional features. Extraction of this drug from yew trees bark is one of the most common ways of producing this drug, but 3000 trees are needed to obtain a kilogram of Taxol. Hence, further attention has recently been attracted to the metabolic engineering strategies, including, engineering cellular metabolism of microorganisms and their optimization. Accordingly, the present paper article was aimed to review recent advances in elevating the production and commercialization of Taxol through metabolic engineering techniques.     

微波消解石墨炉原子吸收光谱法测定水产品中痕量铍

采用微波制样技术,用石墨炉原子吸收光谱法测定水产品中痕量铍。方法的线性范围为0-10μg·L-1,检出限为0．076 ng·g-1,相对标准偏差为2．7％,回收率为97．0％。方法准确、快速、简便,并与常压消解法的结果比较,基本一致,已用于水产品中痕量铍的测定。     

Isolation and Characterization of Badge Hydrolysis Products

Heating a suspension of Bisphenol A diglycidyl ether (BADGE) in 20 : 80 tetrahydrofuran/water at 70°C and subsequent passage of the resulting solution through C18 columns allowed isolation and purification to > 97% of each of the two hydrolysis products 2-[4-(2,3-dihydroxypropoxy) phenyl]-2-[4-(2,3-epoxypropoxy)phenyl]propane (1HP) and 2,2-bis[4-(2,3-dihydroxypropoxy)phenyl] propane (2HP), which were characterized by UV, IR, ₁H and _I3C NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry.     

A study of the catalytic behavior of phosphotungstic acid-modified Janus particles in a heterogeneous oil/water pickering emulsion system

An emulsion interface materialization method was used to obtain amphiphilic silica Janus nanoparticles. Reducing the photosynthesis of aquatic organisms after water pollution. PW₁₂O₄₀³⁻ was introduced onto Janus particles by ion exchange, and an amphiphilic particle emulsion catalyst (PWO-J) was prepared. Hydrogen peroxide was used as the oxygen source, and the amphiphilicty of the catalyst was used to assemble the catalyst at the Pickering emulsion interface. The PWO-J catalyst was found to exhibit very high catalytic activity toward the oxidation of oleic acid in water-in-oil systems. The results showed that PWO-J catalysis of oxidation had similar results as CTAB and phosphotungstic acid (control system) under the same conditions. The azelaic acid recovery rate was 86.7%, and PWO-J could be reused 4 times. A reaction mechanism was proposed, and the constructed model was used to calculate a reaction rate constant of 15.32 × 10⁻⁵L•mol⁻¹•s⁻¹ for the PWO-J system. The PWO-J system had a lower activation energy than the control system, showing that the catalytic oxidation of oleic acid into azelaic acid was more likely to occur in the PWO-J system.     

Liquid chromatography methodologies for the determination of steroid hormones in aquatic environmental systems

Steroid hormones are a diverse group of natural and synthetic compounds. Their wide use in human and veterinary medicine results in their continual introduction into the environment. In recent years, environmental concern over steroids that act as endocrine disruptors has increased because of their adverse effects on organisms or their progeny. Moreover, as these compounds are not totally removed from sewage in wastewater treatment plants, they can reach the aquatic environment and persist due to their physicochemical characteristics.For this reason, a major trend in analytical chemistry is the development of rapid and efficient procedures for the extraction, determination and quantification of steroid hormones in environmental samples. Over the past few decades, the significant expansion of liquid chromatography technology utilizing mass spectrometry detection has led to applications with increased selectivity and sensitivity. Optimized extraction and microextraction techniques combined to these liquid chromatography techniques have lowered detection and quantification limits to the ng L⁻¹–μg L⁻¹ range, which is the concentration of steroid hormones in liquid, solid and biota samples.In this paper, the state-of-the-art techniques for the analysis of steroid hormones focused mainly in based liquid chromatography methods in liquid and aquatic solid and biota samples are reviewed. Handling, storage, extraction and detection methodologies are reviewed and compared for all families of steroid hormones.     

Optimization of Square Wave Voltammetry (SWV) Parameters by Design of Experiment (DoE) Methodologies for the Determination of Mifepristone at Glassy Carbon Electrode (GCE)

In the present study, an electroanalytical method that permits the optimization of factors affecting SWV for sensitive detection of mifepristone at glassy carbon electrode (GCE) using response surface methodology (RSM) with desirability function (DF) is presented. Factors selected for optimization after screening using full factorial design were frequency (X₁), amplitude (X₂), and pH (X₃). The central composite design as a response surface methodology with desirability function (DF) was applied for obtaining the optimum level. The optimum conditions were obtained as follows: Frequency (X₁=50 Hz), amplitude (X₂=33.4 mV), and pH (X₃=9.4), with an overall desirability function of 0.97. Subsequently, confirmatory experiments were performed in triplicates to validate the optimum conditions. The results obtained were satisfactory and agreed well with less only 11.9 % deviation from the values predicted by the model. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were found to be 0.54 and 1.80 ppm, respectively. The proposed method was applied for a quantitative determination of mifepristone in spiked tap water samples. The recovery tests showed that the detection of mifepristone at GC could be evaluated on environmental samples.     

蛋白质对测定水产品中氯苯类化合物的影响及消除

提出了气相色谱-质谱法测定水产品中1,3-二氯苯,1,2-二氯苯,1,2,4-三氯苯等3种氯苯类化合物含量的方法。采用荧光猝灭法研究了氯苯类化合物与蛋白质之间的结合作用,结果表明氯苯类化合物与鱼血清白蛋白之间存在较强的结合作用。水产品样品以丙酮-磷酸氢二钾-水双水相体系进行前处理。在气相色谱分离中用DB-WAX毛细管色谱柱为固定相,在质谱分析中采用选择离子监测模式。3种氯苯类化合物的质量浓度均在0.5~5.0mg·L-1范围内与其峰面积呈线性关系。以空白样品为基体进行加标回收试验,所得回收率在77.0%~116%之间,相对标准偏差(n=6)在2.6%~7.1%之间。