Screening and analysis of potentially active components in Shenxiong glucose injection using UHPLC coupled with photodiode array detection and MS/MS.

Shenxiong glucose injection, a pharmaceutical preparation containing a water extract of the roots of Salvia miltiorrhizae and ligustrazine hydrochloride, is widely used in clinical to treat cardiovascular diseases in China. The chemical components of the water extract have been reported and the cardioprotective effects of the injection have been evaluated. However, the chemical constituents of the injection and their correlations with its pharmacological effects have not been established. In this study, 13 chemical constituents of the injection have been identified or characterized by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection and electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry. Besides, the potentially active compounds of this preparation that directly act on cardiac cells have been screened by cell extraction and ultra high performance liquid chromatography targeted multiple reaction monitoring. As a result, eight potentially active compounds, danshensu (1), ligustrazine hydrochloride (4), salvianolic acid I/H (7), lithospermic acid (8), salvianolic acid D (9), rosmarinic acid (10), salvianolic acid B (12), and salvianolic acid C (13), were obtained and structurally characterized from the 11 target compounds used for screening. The liquid chromatography with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography with multiple reaction monitoring tandem mass spectrometry combination method has demonstrated its potency for the screening, detection, and structural identification of bioactive compounds in a complex matrix.

Discovery and structure-activity relationship of auriculatone: A potent hepatoprotective agent against acetaminophen-induced liver injury.

Acetaminophen (APAP, paracetamol) overdose has been the most frequent cause of drug-induced liver failure. APAP-induced liver toxicity can be fatal in many cases even with treatment of the clinically used N-acetylcysteine (NAC), and the need for novel therapeutic agents is apparent. Through evaluating the hepatoprotective effects of the co-occurring substances present in oleanolic acid tablets which have been used in China for decades as an adjuvant therapy for acute and chronic hepatitis, auriculatone was found to protect HL-7702 cells from APAP-induced liver injury comparable to NAC at the concentration of 10µM. Structure activity relationship on auriculatone and its analogs showed that absence of the C17 carboxyl group of auriculatone was essential to achieve good hepatoprotective activity, and that the C3-OH, C16 carbonyl and C12-C13 olefinic group were critical for retaining the exceptional activity of auriculatone. Any modifications in the current investigation were all detrimental to the hepatoprotective activity. Docking and drug-metabolizing activity studies demonstrated that CYP3A4 was likely the main target of auriculatone, and that auriculatone elicited the hepatoprotective effect possibly through inhibiting CYP3A4's metabolism of APAP to the toxic metabolite NAPQI. The work may pave the way for the use of auriculatone in the treatment of APAP-induced liver injury.

Design, synthesis, and in vitro protective effect evaluation of α-carboline derivatives against H2O2-induced cardiomyocyte injury.

As one of the most important features of myocardial ischemia reperfusion (MI/R) injury, the overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) overwhelms the intrinsic antioxidant and impairs the function of mitochondria and, finally, leads to cardiomyocyte death. To improve the damage of cardiomyocyte caused by oxidative stress, a series of α-carboline derivatives were designed and synthesized in this study. The biological studies revealed that most of the α-carbolines exhibited obvious protective activities against H2O2-induced cardiomyocyte injury. Among them, compound 14b significantly increased the cell viability in H2O2-induced oxidative stress in H9c2 cardiomyoblasts with a concentration-dependent manner, which was more potent than polydatin. Pretreatment of 14b obviously inhibited H2O2-induced lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) leakage, enhanced the capacity of endogenous antioxidant defenses, including superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), and reduced the formation of the toxic product of lipid peroxidation (malondialdehyde, MDA). In addition, 14b effectively reduced the overproduction of ROS and restored the mitochondrial membrane potential ΔΨm, better than that of polydatin. Flow cytometry analysis demonstrated that 14b markedly reduced both necrosis and apoptosis in H9c2 cells after the exposure to H2O2. Further Western blot analysis revealed that 14b obviously decreased the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 and reduced the expression of cytochrome c. Overall, these results revealed the potential of α-carboline 14b as a promising cardioprotective agent against H2O2-induced oxidative injury.

Discovery of ß-Carboline Derivatives as a Highly Potent Cardioprotectant against Myocardial Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury.

Timely myocardial reperfusion salvages ischemic myocardium from infarction, whereas reperfusion itself induces cardiomyocyte death, which is called myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (MI/R) injury. Herein, ß-carboline derivative 17c was designed and synthesized with obvious myocardial protective activity for the first time. Pretreatment of 17c effectively protected the cardiomyocyte H9c2 cells from H2O2-induced lactate dehydrogenase leakage and restored the endogenous antioxidants, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px). Besides, 17c effectively protected the mitochondria through decreasing the reactive oxygen species overproduction and enhancing the mitochondrial membrane potential. As a result, 17c significantly reduced the necrosis of cardiomyocytes in H2O2-induced oxidative stress, which was more potent than polydatin. In MI/R injury rats, 17c pretreatment obviously increased the levels of SOD and GSH-Px and inhibited the apoptosis of cardiomyocytes. Through this way, the size of myocardial infarction was significantly reduced after MI/R injury in vivo, better than that of polydatin, suggesting that 17c is a promising cardioprotectant for the prevention of MI/R injury.