The Beneficial Effects of Dietary Astragali Radix Are Related to the Regulation of Gut Microbiota and Its Metabolites.

Astragali Radix (AR) or its extract has been used as an herbal medicine and dietary supplement in China, Europe, and the United States. The gut microbiota could provide new insights for exploring dietary supplements' underlying mechanism on organisms. However, no reports have focused on the regulatory effect of AR on the gut microbiota as a dietary supplement. In this study, healthy ICR mice of either sex were divided into AR and control (CON) groups and given AR water extract (4.55 mg/kg·day-1) or saline by gavage for 14 days, respectively. Then 16S rRNA gene sequencing and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry-based fecal metabolomics were integrated to investigate the benefits of dietary AR. Weighted gene coexpression network analysis was also introduced to investigate the metabolites with highly synergistic changes. AR supplementation influenced the structure of intestinal microflora, especially enriching short-chain fatty acid-producing bacteria g_Coprobacillus, g_Prevotella, and g_Parabacteroides. AR also significantly altered the fecal metabolome, mainly related to amino acid metabolism, nucleotide metabolism, and bile acid (BA) metabolism. Moreover, the increased secondary BAs and BA-sulfates might closely relate to intestinal microflora. These findings provide valuable insights for future research of dietary AR as a functional food.

[Characterization of oil/water partition coefficient of chishao terpene glucoside components based on contribution rate of representative components for myocardial ischemia].

The components of traditional Chinese medicine(TCMCs) are the basic unit of raw materials for Chinese medicines, and their physical and chemical properties directly affect the choice of dosage forms and the optimization of prescriptions. However, most of TCMCs are multi-component complex systems, and the characterization of their overall properties is still in the exploration stage. On the basis of biological activity, the representative components are determined, and then the individual characteristics are fitted with the weight coefficient of efficacy contribution rate, which may provide reference for characterizing the overall properties of TCMCs. In this study, with the pharmacological effects of isoproterenol(ISO)-induced myocardial ischemia in rats as the indicators, the pharmacodynamic contribution rates of three representative components of chishao terpene glucoside components(CSTGCs) were evaluated by the normalization weighting method. The contribution rates of paeoniflorin, paeoniflorin and benzoylpaeoniflorin were 54.87%, 32.46% and 12.67%, respectively. The oil-water partition coefficients of paeoniflorin, albiflorin, benzoylpaeoniflorin in water and buffer solutions with different pH values were measured, and the oil-water partition coefficients of CSTGCs were characterized by the weight of their pharmacodynamics contribution rate. The results showed that the apparent oil-water partition coefficient(log P) of CSTGCs in the phosphate buffer system such as n-octanol-water(pH 2.0, 2.5, 5.0, 5.8, 6.8) were 0.18-0.22, indicating that CSTGCs have common absorption and low permeability, providing basis for the preparation of CSTGCs.