Patrinia villosa (Thunb.) Juss alleviates CCL4-induced acute liver injury by restoring bile acid levels and inhibiting apoptosis/autophagy.

Background: Patrinia villosa (Thunb.) Juss is one of the plant resources of the famous traditional Chinese medicine "Bai jiang cao (herba patriniae)," and it is considered to function at the liver meridian, thereby treating diseases of the liver as demonstrated by the traditional theory of TCM. Unfortunately, the therapeutic mechanism of the whole plant of PV is so far unknown. Method: UPLC QTOF-MS/MS was used to analyze the profile of PV. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were categorized into five groups, and PV groups (125 and 375 mg/kg) were administered by oral gavage for seven consecutive days. The model of liver injury was induced by intraperitoneal injection of 40% CCl4 oil solution. H&E staining was performed for histological evaluation. The ELISA method was used to assess the serum level of ALT, AST, and T-BIL. Serum and liver bile acid (BA) profiling was analyzed by LC-MS/MS. TUNEL-stained liver sections were used to monitor apoptosis caused by CCl4. HepG2 cells were used to detect autophagy caused by CCl4. Results: A total of 16 compounds were identified from the 70% methanol extract of PV. PV (125 and 375 mg/kg) could reverse the ectopic overexpression of AST, ALT, and T-BIL caused by CCl4 administration. H&E staining indicated that PV (125 and 375 mg/kg) could reduce the infiltration of inflammatory cells and restore liver tissue and hepatocyte structures. Six bile acids, including DCA, HDCA, GCA, TCA, TCDCA, and TUDCA, were significantly altered both in the serum and liver tissue after CCl4 administration, and the level of all these six bile acids was restored by PV treatment. Moreover, PV inhibited apoptosis caused by CCl4 stimulation in liver tissue and suppressed autophagy in HepG2 cells treated with CCl4. Conclusion: The results in this paper for the first time reveal the alteration of the bile acid profile in CCl4-induced liver injury and demonstrate that inhibiting apoptosis and autophagy was involved in P. villosa-elicited liver protection, providing a scientific basis for the clinical utilization of P. villosa as a natural hepatic protective agent.

A new bufadienolide from Bufo gargarizans Cantor.

Bufo gargarizans Cantor (B. gargarizans) is the most widely distributed and abundant species of toad in China. Bufadienolides and indole alkaloids have cardiotonic and anti-tumor activities and are important pharmacological components of B. bufo gargarizans. In this experiment, a novel compound (1) and two known compounds (2 and 3) were isolated and identified from the dry skin of B. bufo gargarizans, both of which are bufadienolides. Various column chromatography methods were used to separate and purify the extract from the dried skin of B. bufo gargarizans. Accurate molecular weights were measured by HR-ESI-MS, and the chemical structure of the compounds was determined by NMR spectrometers. The structures were named as (2ß,5ß,16α)-2,5,16-trihydroxide bufa-14,20,22 dienolide (1), gamabufotalin (2) and desacetylbufotalin (3). In vitro cytotoxic activity assay indicated that compound 1 showed a moderate cytotoxicity against A549 cells with IC50 value of 12.65 µM.

Discovery of Anticancer Activity of Amentoflavone on Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Bioinformatics, Structure-Based Virtual Screening, and Biological Evaluation.

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the most common primary esophageal malignancy with poor prognosis. Here, due to the necessity for exploring potential therapies against ESCC, we obtained the gene expression data on ESCC from the TCGA and GEO databases. Venn diagram analysis was applied to identify common targets. The protein-protein interaction network was constructed by Cytoscape software, and the hub targets were extracted from the network via cytoHubba. The potential hub nodes as drug targets were found by pharmacophore-based virtual screening and molecular modeling, and the antitumor activity was evaluated through in vitro studies. A total of 364 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in ESCC were identified. Pathway enrichment analyses suggested that most DEGs were mainly involved in the cell cycle. Three hub targets were retrieved, including CENPF, CCNA2 (cyclin A), and CCNB1 (cyclin B1), which were highly expressed in esophageal cancer and associated with prognosis. Moreover, amentoflavone, a promising drug candidate found by pharmacophore-based virtual screening, showed antiproliferative and proapoptotic effects and induced G1 in esophageal squamous carcinoma cells. Taken together, our findings suggested that amentoflavone could be a potential cell cycle inhibitor targeting cyclin B1, and is therefore expected to serve as a great therapeutic agent for treating esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Therapeutic effect and metabolomics mechanism of Patrinia Villosa (Thunb.) juss on liver injury in rats.

Patrinia villosa (Thunb.) Juss (P.V) is widely used in the treatment of chronic diseases, such as appendicitis, enteritis and gynecological inflammation. Modern research indicated that the herb has pharmacological effect on liver injury caused by inflammation, but the metabolomics mechanism is not clear. For the purpose of discovering the therapeutic effect and metabolomic mechanism of P.V on liver injury, 40 Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were divided into normal group, model group, and P.V groups (0.98, 1.97, and 2.96 g/kg). The model group and P.V groups were injected intraperitoneally with 40% CCl4 (v/v, olive oil) to establish liver injury model. After administration of P.V for seven consecutive days. Therapeutic effect of P.V on liver injury rats were analyzed. P.V could decrease serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels of liver injury rats as a dose-dependent manner. Compared with the model group, the pathological analysis of liver tissue of P.V groups exhibit significant decrease tendency of hepatic tissue structure destruction, cytoplasmic vacuolation, cellular swelling, and inflammatory cell infiltration as a dose-dependent manner. 82 endogenous metabolites in rat serum and liver were analyzed by Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). 14 metabolites in serum and 26 metabolites in liver were significantly different between the P.V group (2.96 g/kg) and the model group. Metabolic pathway analysis revealed that the main pathway including alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, and TCA cycle were significantly altered. It is suggested that P.V can alleviate CCl4 induced liver injury, and its effect on metabolites may be an important mechanism of action.

Evaluation of lentinan effects on cytochrome P450 activity in rats by a cocktail method.

OBJECTIVES: In this study, a cocktail of probe drugs was used to assess whether lentinan could influence the activities of rat enzymes CYP3A4, CYP2D6, CYP1A2, CYP2C19, and CYP2C9 in vivo. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fourteen days after intraperitoneal injection of lentinan, rats were given an oral dose of a cocktail solution containing phenacetin, tolbutamide, omeprazole, metoprolol, and midazolam. Then, we obtained blood in specific durations for the determination of plasma concentration of the probe drugs using UPLC-MS/MS. We also evaluated the pharmacokinetic parameters using the DAS 2.0 software. RESULTS: We found that various concentrations of lentinan increased the activity of rat CYP1A2, CYP3A4, CYP2D6, and CYP2C19 but not CYP2C9. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that clinical application of lentinan combination with CYP3A4, CYP1A2, CYP2C19, or CYP2D6 should be given careful consideration as this may lead to herb-drug interactions and hence treatment failure.

Determination and Pharmacokinetic Study of Apatinib in Rat Plasma by UPLC.

In this study, a simple, sensitive, and robust analytical method based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) has been developed for the determination of apatinib in rat plasma using carbamazepine as internal standard (IS). After sample preparation by a simple liquid-liquid extraction, chromatography was performed on an Acquity UPLC BEH C18 column (2.1 × 50 mm, 1.7 µm particle size) and total run time was 2.0 min. The method was linear over the concentration range 5-1000 ng/mL with a lower limit of quantification of 5 ng/mL. Inter- and intraday precision were all within 6.5% and the accuracy was ≤3.5%. Recoveries of apatinib and IS were >80%. Stability studies showed that apatinib was stable under a variety of storage conditions. The method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study involving oral administration of apatinib to rats.

Simultaneous determination of nintedanib and its metabolite by UPLC-MS/MS in rat plasma and its application to a pharmacokinetic study.

To establish a rapid and sensitive ultra performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method for the determination of concentration of nintedanib and its metabolite BIBF 1202 in rat plasma. The nintedanib and its metabolite and the internal standard (diazepam) were separated on an Acquity UPLC BEH C18 chromatography column (2.1 mm×50 mm, 1.7 µm) using gradient elution with a mobile phase of acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid in water at a flow rate of 0.30 mL/min. The detection was performed on a triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode to monitor the precursor-to-product ion transitions of m/z540.3→113.1 for nintedanib, m/z526.3→113.0 for BIBF 1202 and m/z285.3→193.1 for diazepam (IS) using a positive electrospray ionization interface. The method was validated for 1.0-200 ng/mL for nintedanib and 0.5-100 ng/mL for BIBF 1202 using 100 µL of plasma sample. Total time for each chromatograph was 3.0 min. The intra- and inter-day precision and accuracy of the quality control samples at low, medium, and high concentration levels exhibited relative standard deviations (RSD) <10.8% and the accuracy values ranged from -11.9% to 10.4%. The method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of nintedanib and BIBF 1202 in rats after oral administration of nintedanib.

Evaluation of the impact of cantharidin on rat CYP enzymes by using a cocktail of probe drugs.

The aim of this study was to assess the influence of cantharidin on the activities of the drug-metabolizing enzymes CYP1A2, CYP2C9, CYP2C19, CYP2D6 and CYP3A4 in rats. The activities of CYP1A2, CYP2C9, CYP2C19, CYP2D6 and CYP3A4 were measured using specific probe drugs. After pretreatment for 1week with cantharidin or physiological saline (control group) by intraperitoneal injection, probe drugs phenacetin (5.0mg/kg; CYP1A2 activity), tolbutamide (1.0mg/kg; CYP2C9 activity), omeprazole (10mg/kg; CYP2C19 activity), metoprolol (20mg/kg; CYP2D6 activity) and midazolam (10mg/kg; CYP3A4 activity) were administered to rats by oral administration. The blood was then collected at different times for ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) analysis. The data showed that cantharidin exhibits an inhibitory effect on CYP2D6 and CYP3A4 by increasing t1/2, Cmax and AUC(0-∞), and decreasing CL/F compared with those of the control group. In addition, cantharidin has induction effect on CYP2C9 activity. However, no significant changes in CYP1A2 and CYP2C19 activities were observed. In conclusion, the results indicated that cantharidin could inhibit CYP2D6 and CYP3A4, while induce CYP2C9, which may affect the disposition of medicines primarily dependent on these pathways. Our work may be the basis of related herb-drug interactions in the clinic.