LC–MS/MS-Based Comparative Investigation on Chemical Constituents of Six Aster Species Occurring in Korea

Aster species (Asteraceae) are widely distributed edible and medicinal plants, known to contain various specialized metabolites including polyphenols and saponins. However, systemic analysis on the chemical profiles of these plants have rarely been made. Here we analyzed the phytochemical constituents in leaves of 6 Aster species occurring in Korea, A. ageratoides, A. altaicus var. uchiyamae, A. glehnii, A. hispidus, A. incisus, and A. yomena, by applying a LC–MS/MS-based untargeted metabolomics approach. The analysis revealed that A. ageratoides, A. hispidus, and A. yomena are relatively rich in saponins most of which are expected to be previously unknown.

Classficiation of Bupleuri Radix according to Geographical Origins using Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) Combined with Supervised Pattern Recognition

Rapid geographical classification of Bupleuri Radix is important in quality control. In this study, near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) combined with supervised pattern recognition was attempted to classify Bupleuri Radix according to geographical origins. Three supervised pattern recognitions methods, partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA) and radial basis function support vector machine (RBF-SVM), were performed to establish the classification models. The QDA and RBF-SVM models were performed based on principal component analysis (PCA). The number of principal components (PCs) was optimized by cross-validation in the model. The results showed that the performance of the QDA model is the optimum among the three models. The optimized QDA model was obtained when 7 PCs were used; the classification rates of the QDA model in the training and test sets are 97.8% and 95.2% respectively. The overall results showed that NIRS combined with supervised pattern recognition could be applied to classify Bupleuri Radix according to geographical origin.

Anti-Influenza Activity of Betulinic Acid from Zizyphus jujuba on Influenza A/PR/8 Virus

Betulinic acid, a pentacyclic triterpene isolated from Jujube tree (Zizyphus jujuba Mill), has been known for a wide range of biological and medicinal properties such as antibacterial, antimalarial, anti-inflammatory, antihelmintic, antinociceptive, and anticancer activities. In the study, we investigated the antiviral activity on influenza A/PR/8 virus infected A549 human lung adenocarcinoma epithelial cell line and C57BL/6 mice. Betulinic acid showed the anti-influenza viral activity at a concentration of 50 muM without a significant cytotoxicity in influenza A/PR/8 virus infected A549 cells. Also, betulinic acid significantly attenuated pulmonary pathology including increased necrosis, numbers of inflammatory cells and pulmonary edema induced by influenza A/PR/8 virus infection compared with vehicle- or oseltamivir-treated mice in vivo model. The down-regulation of IFN-gamma level, which is critical for innate and adaptive immunity in viral infection, after treating of betulinic acid in mouse lung. Based on the obtained results, it is suggested that betulinic acid can be the potential therapeutic agent for virus infection via anti-inflammatory activity.