Gurgem-7 toxicity assessment: Regulation of cell survival or death by traditional Mongolian prescription.

Surgical treatments and chemotherapy are the most commonly used methods of colorectal cancer treatment (CRC), unfortunately, these therapies have many side effects. Moreover, despite advances in primary and adjuvant treatments, the survival time in CRC patients is still unsatisfactory. Treatment options for patients with CRC continue to advance and recent research has shown that colorectal cancer is sensitive to plant-derived substances. The use of natural compounds contained in herbal extracts for the treatment of colon cancer or as adjunctive therapy for CRC gives patients a wide range of treatment options. In this study, we evaluate the potential toxicity of the Mongolian preparation - Gurgem-7 composed of Crocus sativus, Veronica officinalis, Capsella bursa-pastoris, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Calendula officinalis, Gentiana lutea, and Terminalia chebula. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine its biological activities, biochemical and molecular features in vitro and composition analysis by HPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS platform. We identified 18 metabolites and 8 of them were quantified. Majority of the secondary metabolites belonged to the group of phenolic constituents with taxifolin, chlorogenic acids' family, hydroxysafflor yellow A and hydroxybenzoic acid as leading compounds. In turn, our in vitro results suggest that the preparation inhibits cell metabolic activity through oxidative stress, numerous DNA damage and cell cycle arrest. Simultaneously enzymatic and non-enzymatic cell protection mechanisms mediated by TP53/Keap1 and Nrf2/HO-1 pathways may be activated in a cell-specific manner in vitro. In conclusion, we provide preliminary molecular evidence of the toxic properties of Gurgem-7 preparation to Caco-2 and CT26. WT cells related to insufficient action of their repair and adaptive mechanisms to stress conditions.

[Analysis of contents of flavonoids in Mongolian medicine zhenbao pills II and III].

Both zhenbao pills II and III are Mongolian medicine of a kind. Zhenbao pill II was the artificial syntheses and zhenbao pill III was made from natural materials. In this paper, the flavonoids of Mongolian medicine zhenbao pills II and III were extracted by Soxhlet apparatus with methyl alcohol as extracting agent, the colorimetric method was applied to the determination of flavonoids, and the experimental procedure was studied with zhenbao pill II as the test sample. The result showed that the linear range of quantitative determination was 8.05-48.28 microg x mg(-1). The standard addition recovery (SAR) was 99.49%-100.50%. The RSD (n = 3) was 0.54%. The range of contents of flavonoids was 1.47-1.55 mg x g(-1) in zhenbao pill II and was 2.88-3.00 mg x g(-1) in zhenbao pill III. This method was simple and accurate with good reproducibility, and is suitable for the determination of flavonoids in all kinds of pills. The contents of flavonoids can be used to prove whether zhenbao pill is artificial syntheses or natural material.