Effects of Chinese herbal medicines on lifespan in Drosophila.

Food ingredients have shown beneficial effect in delaying aging and extend lifespan. There are Chinese herbal medicines in the category of "homology of medicine and food". In order to find out whether these herbal medicines can act as food component to slow aging, this study selected 12 Chinese herbal medicines containing strong antioxidant components, Canarium album, Amomum villosum, Elsholtzia splendens, Foeniculum vulgare, Fructus hordei germinatus, stir-baked Fructus hordei germinatus, Lilium brownie, Citrus medica, Sophora japonica, Myristica fragrans, Herba houttuyniae, Carthamus tinctoriu, and examined the effects on lifespan using Drosophila melanogaster as the model organism. Our results show that the extracts of the 12 Chinese herbal medicines have various effects on longevity. Some reduced the lifespan in both sexes. Some only shortened the lifespan in one sex. Some have no significant effect in both sexes. There are two herbal medicine extended lifespan, but only in females. The present results suggest that herbal medicines may provide potential candidates for anti-aging ingredients.

Simultaneous determination of 20 bioactive components in Chuanxiong Rhizoma from different production origins in Sichuan province by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry combined with multivariate statistical analysis.

Chuanxiong Rhizoma is a commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine. Chuanxiong Rhizoma is widely distributed in Sichuan province, China, including the cities of Dujiangyan, Pengzhou, Meishan, Qionglai, and Shifang. However, reports on the comparisons of quality of Chuanxiong Rhizoma of different production origins are limited. Therefore, an ultra-HPLC with triple quadrupole MS method was developed for the determination of 20 bioactive components (12 aromatic acids and eight phthalides) in 36 samples from different production origins and further assessed its quality. The contents of these 20 constituents of samples were analyzed by hierarchical cluster analysis and orthogonal partial least squares discrimination analysis; the result indicated that Chuanxiong Rhizoma of different production origins had some differences. Thirteen constituents of quality difference markers were acquired by variable importance for the project. Furthermore, the sum of the contents of these quality difference markers was different from various production origins of Chuanxiong Rhizoma. Meanwhile, Z-ligustilide and senkyunolide A as main constituents of quality difference markers, the rate of various production origins of Chuanxiong Rhizoma was different. This study provides a foundation for the quality assessment of Chuanxiong Rhizoma.

Simultaneous Determination of Night Effective Constituents and Correlation Analysis of Multiconstituents and Antiplatelet Aggregation Bioactivity In Vitro in Chuanxiong Rhizoma Subjected to Different Decoction Times.

Several effective constituents, such as vanillin, ferulic acid, senkyunolide I, senkyunolide H, coniferyl ferulate, Z-ligustilide, butylphthalide, senkyunolide A, and levistilide A, are unstable and possess mutual transformation relationships in Chuanxiong Rhizoma (CR). Traditional Chinese medicine mainly involves decoction, and the content of effective constituents and antiplatelet aggregation bioactivity (AAB) in CR may vary with different decoction time (10 min, 20 min, 30 min, 40 min, 50 min, and 60 min). Here, we showed that coniferyl ferulate and levistilide A were detected in CR material, but not in the decoction. The effective components possessed transformation and degradation in CR decoction of different times. The effective components and the strength of AAB at 10 and 20 minutes were the strongest, followed by 30-50 minutes, and 60 minutes were the weakest by analysis of SIMCA-PLS in CR decoction of different times. In the Pearson correlation analysis, there were correlations (P < 0.05) between effective components, which were ferulic acid and senkyunolide I (coefficient was 0.976), ferulic acid and senkyunolide H (coefficient was 0.972), senkyunolide I and senkyunolide H (coefficient was 0.982), senkyunolide A and butylphthalide (coefficient was 0.974), senkyunolide A and Z-ligustilide (coefficient was 0.947), and butylphthalide and Z-ligustilide (coefficient was 0.993). Effective components (ferulic acid, senkyunolide I, and senkyunolide H) and AAB were correlated and the Pearson correlation coefficients were respectively 0.965, 0.973, and 0.999. In the stepwise regression analysis, senkyunolide H and senkyunolide I were correlated with AAB (P < 0.05). Senkyunolide H (H) was positively correlated with AAB, senkyunolide I (I) was negatively correlated with AAB, and its expression was AAB = 1.187 ∗ H - 0.199 ∗ I - 0.422. These findings indicate that there are some correlations between effective components and AAB in CR.

Rapid and Integrated Quality Assessment of Organic-Inorganic Composite Herbs by FTIR Spectroscopy-Global Chemical Fingerprints Identification and Multiple Marker Components Quantification of Indigo Naturalis (Qing Dai).

This research aimed to develop an FTIR-based method for rapid and low-cost integrated quality assessment of organic-inorganic composite herbs, which are kinds of herbs composed of both organic and inorganic active ingredients or matrix components. A two-step quality assessment route was designed and verified using the example of Indigo Naturalis (Qing Dai). First, the FTIR spectra were used as global chemical fingerprints to identify the true and fake samples. Next, the contents of the organic and inorganic marker components were estimated by FTIR quantification models to assess the quality of the true samples. Using the above approaches, all the 56 true samples and five fake samples of Indigo Naturalis could be identified correctly by the correlation threshold of the FTIR chemical fingerprints. Furthermore, the FTIR calibration models provided an accurate estimation of the contents of marker components with respect to HPLC and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The coefficients of determination (R²) for the independent validation of indigo, indirubin, and calcium were 0.977, 0.983, and 0.971, respectively. Meanwhile, the mean relative errors (MRE) for the independent validation of indigo, indirubin, and calcium were 2.2%, 2.4%, and 1.8%, respectively. In conclusion, this research shows the potential of FTIR spectroscopy for the rapid and integrated quality assessment of organic-inorganic composite herbs in both chemical fingerprints identification and marker components quantification.