Quality Evaluation of Oviductus Ranae Based on PUFAs Using HPLC Fingerprint Techniques Combined with Chemometric Methods.

Oviductus Ranae is a nutritional product for both medicine and food. Its quality is uneven due to multiple factors. An efficient method was established to evaluate the quality of Oviductus Ranae using fingerprint techniques and chemometric methods based on the analysis of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in petroleum ether extract by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). During this process, 27 batches of Oviductus Ranae were analyzed by HPLC and two types of chromatographic fingerprints were established. The fingerprint that was obtained by matching six known peaks was used for the quantification of six PUFAs. Another fingerprint was obtained by matching sixteen peaks with a peak area ratio greater than 0.5% and it was used to classify the different qualities of Oviductus Ranae by further combining three different chemometric models. The 27 batches of Oviductus Ranae were divided into four categories, which was consistent with the analysis results of six PUFAs contents. The two high-quality samples with significantly higher contents were classified into one category, and samples with medium contents were divided into two categories, including eight and thirteen samples, respectively. The four inferior samples with lower contents were classified into one category. The results indicated that the newly developed method has potential application prospects for the quality evaluation of Oviductus Ranae.

Antitussive and Anti-inflammatory Dual-active Agents Developed from Natural Product Lead Compound 1-Methylhydantoin.

Natural products play an important role in drug discovery. This work employed a natural product 1-methylhydantoin as the lead compound to develop novel dual-active drugs. 1-Methylhydantoin was isolated from Oviductus Ranae, which is a traditional Chinese medicine that has been used for tussive and inflammation treatment for a long time. An in silico study screened the more active 1-methylhydantoin derivatives. Antitussive assessment indicated that the newly synthesized agent had similar bioactivity with the natural product. An anti-inflammatory model used xylene induced ear edema model. At the same dosage (100 mg/Kg), the newly prepared agent had an inhibition rate 53.18% which was much higher than that of the lead compound (22.69%). The results might be ascribed to the cyclooxygenases-1 (COX-1) and cyclooxygenases-2 (COX-2) selectivity, and the fitness of the compound, and the binding pocket. The anti-particulate matter (PM 2.5) acute pneumonia was evaluated through an in vivo model constructed by nasal instillation with PM 2.5 suspension. The results of the above models suggested that this novel agent had remarkable antitussive, anti-inflammatory, and anti-PM 2.5 acute pneumonia activities.

Environmental influences on quality features of Oviductus Ranae in the Changbai Mountains.

This work studied the influences of environmental factors on the quality features of Oviductus Ranae. Oviductus Ranae is mainly produced in the Changbai Mountains. The samples of Oviductus Ranae were collected from 24 different locations, which covered the main producing areas. The environmental parameters were assessed using a digital raingauge, GPS, a thermometer, and an atmospheric pressure-altimeter. The quality features including expansion degree, ethanol extract, total water, total ash, and five steroid components, of the collected Oviductus Ranae samples were quantified using high-performance liquid chromatography. The results showed that the cholesterol content in the samples collected from the Yanbian Korean region was slightly higher than the others. Samples collected from the Huadian area exhibited much higher contents of 7-hydroxycholesterol and 7-dehydrocholesterol than the rest of the producing areas. The highest content of cholest-4-en-3-one came from the samples collected from Dandong. The contents of 7-keto-cholesterol in samples from different regions were very close. The highest ethanol extract was from the samples in Tonghua. The correlations between the quality features and environmental factors were analyzed by SPSS (version 25.0, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). The results showed that the content of cholest-4-en-3-one was related to the annual average temperature. The total water was correlated with the annual precipitation. 7-Hydroxycholesterol and expansion degree were related to the altitude. The results indicated that environmental factors have certain influences on the quality features.