Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel oleanolic acid analogues as potential α-glucosidase inhibitors.

Considerable interest has been attracted in oleanolic acid and its analogues because of their hypoglycemic activity. In this study, a series of novel oleanolic acid analogues against α-glucosidase were synthesized and their biological activities were evaluated in vitro and in vivo. In vitro α-glucosidase inhibition activity results indicated that most of the designed analogues exhibited prominent inhibition activities, especially compounds 10, 15, 16 and 26 which with the IC50 values of 0.33 ±â€¯0.01, 0.98 ±â€¯0.06, 0.69 ±â€¯0.01 and 0.72 ±â€¯0.21 µM, respectively. Enzyme kinetic studies on the most potent compounds reveled that derivatives 10, 15, 16 and 26 were noncompetitive inhibitors. Moreover, the docking studies were carried out to prove that the four compounds could interact with the hydrophobic region of the active pocket and form hydrogen bonds to enhance the binding affinity of them with the α-glucosidase. Cytotoxicity evaluation assay demonstrated a high level of safety profile of the active compounds (10, 15, 16 and 26) against normal 3T3 cell line. Furthermore, the in vivo actual pharmacological potential studies on derivatives 10, 15, 16 and 26 showed that the hypoglycemic effects of them were comparable to that of positive control, acarbose.

The biological evaluation of fusidic acid and its hydrogenation derivative as antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory agents.

BACKGROUND: Fusidic acid (FA) (WU-FA-00) is the only commercially available antimicrobial from the fusidane family that has a narrow spectrum of activity against Gram-positive bacteria. METHODS: Herein, the hydrogenation derivative (WU-FA-01) of FA was prepared and both compounds were examined against a panel of six bacterial strains. In addition, their anti-inflammatory properties were evaluated using a 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA)-induced mouse ear edema model. RESULTS: The results of the antimicrobial assay revealed that both WU-FA-00 and WU-FA-01 displayed a high level of antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive strains. Moreover, killing kinetic studies were performed and the results were in accordance with the minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration results. We also demonstrated that the topical application of WU-FA-00 and WU-FA-01 effectively decreased TPA-induced ear edema in a dose-dependent manner. This inhibitory effect was associated with the inhibition of TPA-induced upregulation of proinflammatory cytokines IL-1ß, TNF-α, and COX-2. WU-FA-01 significantly suppressed the expression levels of p65, IκB-α, and p-IκB-α in the TPA-induced mouse ear model. CONCLUSION: Overall, our results showed that WU-FA-00 and WU-FA-01 not only had effective antimicrobial activities in vitro, especially to the Gram-positive bacteria, but also possessed strong anti-inflammatory effects in vivo. These results provide a scientific basis for developing FA derivatives as antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory agents.

Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel ursolic acid analogues as potential α-glucosidase inhibitors.

Ursolic acid (UA) is a major pentacyclic triterpenoid in plants, vegetables and fruits, which has been reported to have a potential anti-diabetic activity. Despite various semi-synthetic ursolic acid derivatives already described, new derivatives still need to be designed and synthesized to further improve the anti-diabetic activity. In the present study, two series of novel UA derivatives, were synthesized and their structures were confirmed. The enzyme inhibition activities of semi-synthesized analogues against α-glucosidase were screened in vitro. The results indicated that most of UA derivatives showed a significant inhibitory activity, especially analogues UA-O-i with the IC50 values of 0.71 ± 0.27 µM, which was more potential than other analogues and the positive control. Furthermore, molecular docking studies were also investigated to verify the in vitro study. Structure modification at the C-3 and C-2 positions of UA was an effective approach to obtain the desired ligand from UA, whose structure was in accordance with the active pocket. Besides, suitable hydrophobic group at the position of C-2 might play an important role for the docking selectivity and binding affinity between the ligand and the homology modelling protein. These results could be helpful for designing more potential α-glucosidase inhibitors from UA in the future.

Simultaneous solid phase extraction coupled with liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry and gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry for the highly sensitive determination of 15 endocrine disrupting chemicals in seafood.

This study aimed to develop a sensitive and reliable multi-residue method for the determination of trace amounts of endocrine disrupting chemicals including five phthalate esters (PAEs), five monoalky phthalate esters (MPEs), four alkylphenols (APs) and bisphenol A (BPA) in seafood. Ultrasonic liquid extraction was selected for extraction based on acetonitrile, instead of frequently-used n-hexane, due to its lower background of PAEs. Application of solid phase extraction (SPE) with primary secondary amine (PSA, 1g/6 mL) cartridge achieved the relatively low matrix effects for MPEs and BPA in seafood. To our knowledge, it is the first study reporting about simultaneous extraction and purification of PAEs, MPEs, APs and BPA in biota samples. To obtain the maximum sensitivity, both liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) were applied for analysis. This method was validated and tested on fish, mollusk and prawn. Sufficient linearity was verified by Mandel's fitting test for the matrix-matched calibrations used in this study for MPEs, APs and BPA, between 0.5 ng/g and 200 ng/g or 400 ng/g. And correlation coefficients of all calibrations suppressed 0.99 for all analytes. Good recoveries were obtained, ranging from 60% to 127% for most compounds. The sensitivity was good with method detection limits (MDLs) of 0.015-2.2 ng/g wet weight (ww) for all compounds. Most MDLs are much lower than those in previous reports. The sensitive method was then applied on real fish, mollusk and prawn samples from the Yangtze River Delta sea area (China), and all the target compounds were detected with the maximum concentrations of PAEs, MPEs, APs and BPA up to 219.3 ng/g ww, 51.4 ng/g ww, 62.0 ng/g ww and 8.6 ng/g ww, respectively.

Multi-class method for determination of veterinary drug residues and other contaminants in infant formula by ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

A rapid, simple and generic analytical method which was able to simultaneously determine 220 undesirable chemical residues in infant formula had been developed. The method comprised of extraction with acetonitrile, clean-up by low temperature and water precipitation, and analysis by ultra performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-MS-MS) using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. Most fat materials in acetonitrile extract were eliminated by low temperature clean-up. The water precipitation, providing a necessary and supplementary cleanup, could avoid losses of hydrophobic analytes (avermectins, ionophores). Average recoveries for spiked infant formula were in the range from 57% to 147% with associated RSD values between 1% and 28%. For over 80% of the analytes, the recoveries were between 70% and 120% with RSD values in the range of 1-15%. The limits of quantification (LOQs) were from 0.01 to 5 µg/kg, which were usually sufficient to verify the compliance of products with legal tolerances. Application of this method in routine monitoring programs would imply a drastic reduction of both effort and time.

Generic and rapid determination of veterinary drug residues and other contaminants in raw milk by ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

A generic, rapid and simple analytical method able to identify 255 veterinary drug residues and other contaminants in raw milk had been developed. The method was based on two-step simple precipitation and ultra performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization and tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-MS/MS) operating both in positive and negative multiple reaction mode (MRM). For most of the target analytes, the optimized pretreatment processes led to no significant interference on analysis from complicated sample matrix. For quantification, matrix-fortified calibration curves were performed to compensate for the matrix effect and loss in sample preparation. Competent linearity was found for over 90% of target compounds with linear regression coefficients (R) higher than 0.99. Detection limits ranged from 0.05 to 10µg/kg. Average recoveries spiked into raw milk were in the range from 63% to 141% with associated RSD values from 1% to 29% under the selected conditions. The method had been validated for its extraction sensitivity, linearity, recoveries and precision. The results clearly demonstrated the feasibility of the approach proposed. Application of this method, which improved efficiency and coverage of residues, would imply a drastic reduction of both effort and time in routine monitoring programs.