Fufang Luohanguo Qingfei granules reduces influenza virus susceptibility via MAVS-dependent type I interferon antiviral signaling.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Fufang Luohanguo Qingfei granules (LQG) is a Chinese patent medicine, clinically used to treat flu-like symptoms including cough with yellow phlegm, impeded phlegm, dry throat and tongue. However, the protective activity of LQG against influenza infection is indeterminate. AIM OF THE STUDY: This study is to investigate the therapeutic effect of LQG on influenza infection and elucidate its underlying mechanism. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In vivo: A viral susceptible mouse model induced by restraint stress was established to investigate LQG's beneficial effects on influenza susceptibility. MAVS knockout (Mavs-/-) mice were used to verify the potential mechanism of LQG. In vitro: Corticosteroid (CORT)-treated A549 cells were employed to identify the active ingredients in LQG. Mice morbidity and mortality were monitored daily for 21 days. Histopathologic changes and inflammatory cytokines in lung tissues were examined by H&E staining and ELISA. RNA-seq was used to explore the signaling pathway influenced by LQG and further confirmed by qPCR. Immunoblotting and immunohistochemistry (IHC) were used to determine the protein levels. CO-IP and DARTS were applied to detect protein-protein interaction and compound-protein interaction, respectively. RESULTS: LQG effectively attenuated the susceptibility of restrained mice to H1N1 infection. LQG significantly boosted the production of IFN-ß transduced by mitochondrial antiviral-signaling protein (MAVS), while MAVS deficiency abrogated its protective effects on restrained mice infected with H1N1. Moreover, in vitro studies further revealed that mogroside Ⅱ B, amygdalin, and luteolin are potentially active components of LQG. CONCLUSION: These results suggested that LQG inhibited the mitofusin 2 (Mfn2)-mediated ubiquitination of MAVS by impeding the E3 ligase synoviolin 1 (SYVN1) recruitment, thereby enhancing IFN-ß antiviral response. Overall, our work elaborates a potential regimen for influenza treatment through reduction of stress-induced susceptibility.

The Spectral Prediction of Original Primary Pigment Based on Constrained Non-Negative Matrix Factorization.

With direct prediction in the spectral reflectance space with principal component analysis, the numbers of eigenvectors will surpass the numbers of real primary pigments while the eigenvectors and the corresponding coefficients have negative value, which can not directly presented original primary pigment spectral characteristics and corresponding concentration. We proposed an innovative spectral prediction method in which a complete linear spectral space was created according to optical properties of originals pigment. A constrained non-negative matrix factorization algorithm to predict the numbers and spectral curve shapes of real primary pigments was used in the space. So, this paper designed an overall research plan and implementation process about spectral prediction method firstly, and studied how to select and establish a spectral linear space which was conformed to optical properties of originals; taking transparent pigments as example, and spectra constrained non-negative matrix factorization (SCNMF) algorithm was established to predict primary pigment spectra based on basic non-negative matrix factorization algorithm (BNMF). Aiming at realizing multiple optimal solution of BNMF and improving the prediction accuracy as well as make the matrix decomposition results to be clearly physically meaningful; the proposed SCNMF needs to satisfy four constraints: non negative constraint, additive constraint, smoothness constraint and sparseness constraint. The objective function and iterative algorithm to meet four constraints were set up. The prediction results show that the proposed method can realize accurate prediction of original primary pigments' numbers and spectra effectively.

[The Research of Spectral Dimension Reduction Method Based on Human Visual Characteristics].

The traditional spectral dimension reduction methods are usually carried out by matching the reconstructed spectra to the original spectra mathematically, which will often result in reconstructed spectra of small spectral reconstruction errors but very poor colorimetric accuracy when compared with the original one. In order to minimize both the spectral and colorimetric errors more efficiently, we proposed three spectral dimension reduction methods by introducing the characteristics of human vision. The first method is VPCA, in which we apply spectral luminous efficiency function to the original spectra before reduction; The Second method (LMSPCA) uses a matrix derived from LMS cone sensitivity to weight the original spectra before reduction, and the matrix can be form by two methods, in which the L, M, S cones response offset is calculated by in two different ways: one is computed as the absolute value of each corresponding wave length offset, and the other is calculated as the square of each corresponding wave length offset. The third method is LMSPCAs, which is based on the second method LMSPCA by further applying PCA to the residual spectra. The result shows that the VPCA method produces the poorest perfomance. The two cones response weighted matrixes of LMSPCA method have similar performances by presenting better colorimetric accuracy and low spectral accuracy, while LMSPCAs method which compensates for the spectral loss of LMSPCA method can produce higher spectral and colorimetric reconstruction accuracy and color stability under different light source, and satisfies the requirements of spectral color reproduction.

Application of metabolomics in traditional chinese medicine differentiation of deficiency and excess syndromes in patients with diabetes mellitus.

Metabolic profiling is widely used as a probe in diagnosing diseases. In this study, the metabolic profiling of urinary carbohydrates was investigated using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and multivariate statistical analysis. The kernel-based orthogonal projections to latent structures (K-OPLS) model were established and validated to distinguish between subjects with and without diabetes mellitus (DM). The model was combined with subwindow permutation analysis (SPA) in order to extract novel biomarker information. Furthermore, the K-OPLS model visually represented the alterations in urinary carbohydrate profiles of excess and deficiency syndromes in patients with diabetes. The combination of GC/MS and K-OPLS/SPA analysis allowed the urinary carbohydrate metabolic characterization of DM patients with different traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndromes, including biomarkers different from non-DM patients. The method presented in this study might be a complement or an alternative to TCM syndrome research.

[Clinical early intervention of Tongxia Huayu Decoction on pancreatic microcirculatory disturbance in severe acute pancreatitis].

OBJECTIVE: To study the mechanisms of Tongxia Huayu Decoction (a Chinese herbal decoction for purgation and removing blood stasis) in prognostic improvement for severe acute pancreatitis by early intervention on pancreatic microcirculatory disturbance. METHODS: Fifty-three patients with severe acute pancreatitis were divided randomly into treatment group (n=28) and control group (n=25). Tongxia Huayu Decoction was given to the patients in treatment group in addition to the normal treatment in control group for one week. The clinical symptoms and signs, hemodiastase, urinary amylase, C-reactive protein (CRP) and endothelin (ET) of the patients in the two groups before and after treatment were observed and detected. RESULTS: The total response rate of the treatment group was 98.4%, while that of the control group was 80%, with significant difference between them (P<0.05). There was no significant difference of the contents of hemodiastase, urinary amylase, CRP and ET between the two groups before treatment, while they were significantly decreased after treatment (P<0.01) with more obvious change in treatment group (P<0.01). CONCLUSION: Tongxia Huayu Decoction brings satisfied therapeutic effect on severe acute pancreatitis. The mechanisms may associate with its reducing function on ET releasing so as to inhibit the pancreatic microcirculatory disturbance and acinar cell injury induced by ET.