Canscora lucidissima, a Chinese folk medicine, exerts anti-inflammatory activities by inhibiting the phosphorylation of ERK1/2 in LPS-activated macrophages.

BACKGROUND: Canscora lucidissima (Levl. & Vaniot) Hand.-Mazz. (C. lucidissima), mainly distributed in southern China, has been shown to be effective in the treatment of inflammatory diseases. However, the underlying mechanism of its anti-inflammatory effect is not fully understood. METHODS: In this study, we investigated the anti-inflammatory mechanism of ethanol extract of C. lucidissima (Cl-EE) in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inflammatory models. ELISA, real-time PCR, Western blot and luciferase reporter assay were used for the experiments in vitro, and ICR mouse endotoxemia model was used for in vivo test. RESULTS: Our data showed that Cl-EE reduced the production of NO by down-regulating the mRNA and protein expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in LPS-activated RAW 264.7 cells. Meanwhile, it potently decreased other proinflammatory mediators, such as TNF-α, IL-6, MCP-1 and IL-1ß at the transcriptional and translational levels. Further study indicated that Cl-EE did not affect NF-κB signaling pathway but significantly suppressed the phosphorylation of ERK1/2, rather than JNK or p38. In a LPS-induced endotoxemia mouse model, a single intraperitoneal injection of Cl-EE (75-300 mg/kg) could lower circulatory TNF-α, IL-6 and MCP-1 levels. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, our results indicated that Cl-EE suppressed the phosphorylation level of ERK1/2 thus reducing the transcription and translation of inflammatory genes, thereby exerted anti-inflammatory activity. This study reveals the anti-inflammatory mechanism of C. lucidissima and may provide an effective treatment option for a variety of inflammatory diseases.

Microwave-assisted synthesis of calcium carbonate (vaterite) of various morphologies in water-ethylene glycol mixed solvents.

A fast microwave-assisted method is reported for the synthesis of CaCO3 (vaterite) with various morphologies in the water/ethylene glycol (EG) system with surfactants. Our experiments show that microwave heating, reaction time, surfactant, and the water-EG mixed solvents play important roles in the morphology of vaterite. Vaterite with dagger-like, bicone-like, shuttle-like morphology and microspheres self-assembled from nanoparticles have been obtained by adjusting the experimental parameters. The products were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy.

A versatile strategy to construct multifunctional metal oxide@cyanometallate-based coordination polymer heterostructures.

We have developed one versatile spatially confined self-assembly strategy to integrate cyanometallate-based coordination polymers with functional metal oxides into well-defined core@shell heterostructures. The structure, composition, size and morphology of the heterostructures could be facilely controlled. The obtained Fe3O4@Prussian blue heterostructure was evaluated as an appealing multifunctional thermal ablation agent exhibiting response to both magnetic field and light irradiation.