Affinity selection-based two-dimensional chromatography coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry for discovering xanthine oxidase inhibitors from Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae.

Xanthine oxidase (XOD) is a key oxidative enzyme to the pathogenesis of hyperuricemia and certain diseases induced by excessive reactive oxygen species. XOD inhibitors could provide an important therapeutic approach to treat such diseases. A new method using affinity selection-based two-dimensional chromatography coupled with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry was developed for the online screening of potential XOD inhibitors from Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae. Based on our previous study, the two-dimensional, turbulent-flow chromatography (TFC) was changed to a mixed-mode anion-exchange/reversed-phase column and one reversed-phase column. The developed method was validated to be selective and sensitive for screening XOD-binding compounds, especially weak acidic ones, in the extracts. Three salvianolic acids were screened from the Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae extract via the developed method. The XOD inhibitory activities of salvianolic acid C and salvianolic acid A were confirmed, and their inhibitory modes were measured. Salvianolic acid C exhibited potent XOD inhibitory activity with an IC(50) of 9.07 µM. This work demonstrated that the developed online, two-dimensional TFC/LC-MS method was effective in discovering the binding affinity of new compounds from natural extracts for target proteins, even at low concentrations.

Screening for selective inhibitors of xanthine oxidase from Flos Chrysanthemum using ultrafiltration LC-MS combined with enzyme channel blocking.

In this study, a new method based on ultrafiltration liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UF-LC-MS) combined with enzyme channel blocking (ECB) was developed to discover bioactive components from herbal medicines. Xanthine oxidase (XOD), a critical enzyme for treating gout, was employed as the target protein for screening. By comparing chromatographic profiles of the compounds binding to XOD before and after the ECB experiment, the selective ligands could be distinguished from the non-selective binders. In this experiment, febuxostat bound to the channel entering into the active site of the enzyme and prevented potential ligands from binding. Finally, four compounds, namely, luteolin-7-O-glucoside, apigenin-7-O-glucoside, luteolin and apigenin were screened and identified as the candidate XOD inhibitors based on the ultrafiltration chromatogram of Flos Chrysanthemum, a famous traditional Chinese medicine used in many prescriptions for gout treatment. To verify the compounds screened further, a microplate method was applied to evaluate their enzyme inhibitory activities. The IC50 values of the above 4 compounds were 23.61, 38.80, 1.54 and 1.96µM, respectively. The structure-function relationship was also estimated according to the in vitro assay. The results were in favor of the hypothesis that the Flos Chrysanthemum extract might be used for gout treatment by inhibiting XOD.