Characterization and Antioxidant Evaluation of Four Kinds of Marine Oils in vitro.

The objective of this study was to characterize the lipid class and fatty acid composition of four kinds of marine oils including Phaeodactylum tricornutum oil (PO), Laminaria japonica oil (LO), krill oil (KO) and fish oil (FO), and evaluate their antioxidant capacities in vitro. The results indicated that compared to other three oils, PO showed the highest contents of total lipids and fucoxanthin (194.70 and 7.48 mg/g dry weight, respectively), the relatively higher content of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids including eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) (30.94 % in total fatty acids), and total phenolic content (675.88 mg gallic acid equivalent /100 g lipids), thereby contribute to great advantages in scavenging free radicals such as 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzthiazoline)-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS), peroxyl radical, as well as reducing FRAP value. In conclusion, PO should be considered as a potential ingredient for dietary supplement with antioxidant capacity.

Conversion of poplar into bio-oil via subcritical hydrothermal liquefaction: Structure and antioxidant capacity.

Subcritical hydrothermal liquefaction of poplar was performed at 220-280 °C, and the liquid phase produced was extracted by ethyl acetate to obtain light oil (LO), which contained LO1 (water-soluble) and LO2 (ethyl acetate-soluble). The residue was further extracted with acetone to produce heavy oil (HO) and solid residue (SR). The highest bio-oil yield of 19.88% was obtained at 260 °C. The HO produced at 260 °C had the highest content of C (69.13%) and the higher heating value was 27.97 MJ/kg. The O/C and H/C ratios of LO were higher than those of HO due to less aromatics in LO. Oxidative inhibition rates of bio-oils, measured in DPPH-ethanol solution at a concentration of 0.1 mg/mL, reached 60.76% for LO1 while 90.29% and 90.85% for LO2 and HO, respectively. The bio-oil with good antioxidant activity can be utilized as an additive in bio-diesel to improve oxidation stability.

Investigation into the anti-thrombosis effect and contents of total saponins and flavonoids in the bioactive fraction of Naodesheng prescription.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Naodesheng prescription is a widely used traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and mainly applied in clinics to treat cerebral arteriosclerosis, ischemic stroke, sequelae of cerebral hemorrhage etc. AIM OF THE STUDY: The present study was designed to investigate the anti-thrombosis effects of this prescription, and to search its bioactive fraction. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We evaluated the anti-thrombotic effects by measuring platelet aggregation in rats, and the clotting time and protection rate in mice. The contents of total saponins and flavonoids in the bioactive fraction were determined by UV-vis spectrophotometry. RESULTS: The results showed that Naodesheng has significant anti-thrombotic and anticoagulation effects. The contents of total saponins and flavonoids in the bioactive fraction were 7.885% and 8.434%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Such study will contribute to further exploration of Naodesheng in the therapy of thrombosis diseases and to its re-development based on the bioactive fraction and ingredients.

Multiple information contents derived from the chromatograms and their application to the modeling of quantitative profile-efficacy relationship.

Herbal medicine has been successfully applied in clinical therapeutics throughout the world. In this paper, various information contents in addition to a best-first search strategy are proposed for improving prediction quality of quantitative profile-efficacy relationship (QPER). As a demonstration, a QPER model was constructed to predict the blood-clotting time increasing effect of Naodesheng prescription, a widely used herbal medicine in China. Evaluated by both the self-consistency test and the rigorous jackknife test, the predictive accuracy was increased by feeding the model with the merged information contents compared to only with the common chromatographic peak areas. The confirmation experiment exhibited that the predicted blood-clotting time were well consistent with the observed values. Furthermore, it has not escaped from our notice that the important potential application of the current QPER model is to be extended to help search active fractions, which has attracted more and more attention in the re-developments of herbal medicines based on the active compounds.

[Simulation study of antithrombotic active fraction of Naodesheng by support vector machine].

OBJECTIVE: To screen the antithrombotic active fraction of Naodesheng. METHODS: The collagen and adrenaline-induced thrombosis by tail intravenous injection in mice was used. Based on orthogonal design, the support vector machine model was established for pharmacodynamics prediction of TCM prescriptions. RESULTS: The model established in this study could predict the drug actions of different combinations. CONCLUSION: The pharmacodynamic actions of several formulas are superior to that of the original formula and CD has the best effect.

A support vector machine based pharmacodynamic prediction model for searching active fraction and ingredients of herbal medicine: Naodesheng prescription as an example.

The complex chemical composition of herbal medicine leads to the lack of appropriate method for identifying active compounds and optimizing the formulation of herbal medicine. One of the most commonly used method is bioassay-guided fractionation. However, if the herbal medicine was divided into many fractions, it would cost much money and time in carrying out such a full bioassay. So, can we just perform the bioassay of a few fractions, and then develop a method to predict the bioactivities of other fractions? This study is designed to try to answer the question. In this work, a support vector machine (SVM) pharmacodynamic prediction model was introduced to search active fraction and ingredients of Naodesheng prescription. The prescription was first divided into five extracts, yielding a total of 25=32 combinations. Anti-platelet aggregation experiment with SD rats was just carried out on 16 combinations. The effects of the remained 32-16=16 combinations were then predicted by the SVM model. The prediction quality was evaluated by both the rigorous jackknife test and the independent dataset validation test. Furthermore, the present method was compared with the frequently used MLR, PCR and PLSR. The present method outperforms the other 3 methods, yielding: RMSECV=2.40, R=0.895 by the jackknife test and RMSEP=7.41, R=0.910 by the independent dataset test. It indicates that the SVM prediction model has good accuracy and generalization ability. The active fraction and ingredients of Naodesheng prescription were then predicted by the model. It is believed that the present model can be extended to help search the active fraction and ingredients of other herbal medicines.

A new alkaloid from the stem of Sparganium stoloniferum Buch.-Ham.

A new alkaloid (1), together with five known compounds (2-6), has been isolated from the stem of Sparganium stoloniferum Buch.-Ham. The structure of the new compound was elucidated as 3-isobutyl-tetrahydro-imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine-2,5-dione on the basis of physical and chemical evidence and spectral analysis. Compound 6 was obtained for the first time from the Sparganium genus.