Rapid detection of sildenafil analogue in Eurycoma longifolia products using a new two-tier procedure of the near infrared (NIR) spectra database

Application of terahertz Time-Domain spectroscopy and chemometrics-based whale optimization algorithm in PDE5 inhibitor detection

Combating the illicit use of PDE5 inhibitor drugs is a focal point in forensic science research. In order to achieve rapid identification of such drugs, this study applies terahertz time-domain spectroscopy combined with chemometrics to establish a fast and accurate detection method for PDE5 inhibitors. The optimal detection method is determined by comparing the spectral performance of three optical parameters, namely absorption coefficient, refractive index, and dielectric constant. Linear discriminant models based on different spectral parameters, whale optimization algorithm optimized extreme learning machine models, and whale optimization algorithm optimized random forest models are established. The effectiveness and performance of principal component analysis and competitive adaptive reweighted sampling algorithm for spectral feature data selection are also investigated. The PDE5 inhibitor identification model based on the competitive adaptive reweighted sampling - whale optimization algorithm - random forest (CARS-WOA-RF) model achieves an accuracy of 98.61%, and the identification model for two concentrations of Sildenafil achieves 100% accuracy. The results demonstrate that terahertz time-domain spectroscopy combined with chemometrics can effectively detect various common types of PDE5 inhibitor drugs and different concentrations.

Rapid screening of illegal additives in functional food using desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging

Compounds such as Sildenafil, which bring potential health risks to consumers, have been illegally added to functional food. The public security department hopes to quickly screen for illegal additives. The quantity of seized samples is often large and their compositions are unknown; it is necessary to screen the unknown samples qualitatively and sometimes quantitatively. In this paper, a new method for rapid screening of 39 common illegal additives in six categories of functional food based on DESI-MSI technology is proposed, and the DESI-MSI library is established, which can be used for exclusive and sensitive qualitative confirmation of suspicious samples. A new carrier material that can be used for rapid qualitative detection of solid sample is discovered. The samples require simple or even no pretreatment to carry out high-resolution imaging through the imaging function of DESI-MSI. The imaging results are clear and intuitive, and can achieve fast and high-throughput qualitative identification of illegally added compounds. This method has good linearity, accuracy, precision, and little effect of matrix, so it can roughly quantify the illegal additives in functional products. Twenty-one batches of unknown samples were detected by DESI-MSI, and the positive results were confirmed by LC-MS/MS (QQQ). The results showed that the DESI-MSI method was effective and reliable. DESI-MSI with self-made database is a promising method for rapid screening of illegal additives in functional food, which can be widely used in grass-roots police stations.

A Multifaceted Review of Eurycoma longifolia Nutraceutical Bioactives: Production, Extraction, and Analysis in Drugs and Biofluids

Eurycoma longifolia Jack (known as Tongkat Ali) is a popular traditional herbal medicine, native to southeast Asia, that is well-known for its aphrodisiac as well as several other effects. Mostly, the root extract of E. longifolia is used as a folk medicine for sexual dysfunction, aging, anxiety, exercise recovery, fever, increased energy, and osteoporosis. These health effects led to the inclusion of E. longifolia in dietary supplements, particularly for bodybuilding purposes. These effects are mediated by a myriad of bioactive compounds belonging to quassinoids, canthin-6-one alkaloids, tirucallane triterpenes, squalene derivatives, and bioactive steroids. Among these phytoconstituents, quassinoids account for a large portion of E. longifolia root phytochemicals. Of these ingredients, eurycomanone, the major quassinoid in E. longifolia extract, accounts to a large extent for its health effects. This review capitalizes on the novel trends toward the production of E. longifolia bioactives using biotechnology and extraction optimization for best yields and recovery. Alongside, novel extraction methods, i.e., green techniques, of E. longifolia bioactives are described. Further, an overview of the different analytical approaches for the quality control assessment of E. longifolia plant material and nutraceuticals is presented alongside studies in body fluids to determine its pharmacokinetics and efficacy level. Such a compilation of analytical methods will help ensure safety and efficacy of that major drug.

Supplementation with Eurycoma longifolia Extract Modulates Diurnal Body Temperature Fluctuation and Sleep Rhythm in Mice

Eurycoma longifolia (Tongkat Ali; TA) is a traditional medicinal herb, commonly known as Malaysian ginseng. The root tea has been traditionally applied to treat fevers, aches, sexual dysfunction and other ailments. We evaluated the effects of TA extract supplementation on diurnal core body temperature (BT) and sleep architecture in model mice. Dietary supplementation with TA extract for 4 wk resulted in significantly and moderately reduced BT during the rest and active phases, respectively. A high dose delayed the onset of BT elevation at the start of the active phase, indicating that the effect was dose-dependent. Electroencephalography findings revealed that dietary supplementation with TA extract changed sleep rhythms and delta power during the inactive phase of NREM sleep, indicating improved sleep quality. Our findings suggested that dietary TA extract could be a promising natural aid that alleviates sleep problems via thermoregulation.

Utilization of UiO-66-NH<sub>2</sub>@cellulose hybrid aerogel for solid-phase extraction of sildenafil in health products

研究建立了一种基于UiO-66-NH₂@纤维素复合气凝胶的高灵敏度固相萃取新方法,与高效液相色谱法联用用于保健品中西地那非的检测。先将纤维素进行醛基和酰肼基的功能化,然后将两种功能化的纤维素通过交联并负载UiO-66-NH₂形成复合气凝胶。将此复合气凝胶作为固相萃取的吸附剂使用时,易于收集且不需要外加磁场或者抽真空的辅助作用,操作简单。研究对制备所得的UiO-66-NH₂@纤维素复合气凝胶进行了X-射线粉末衍射、扫描电镜、红外光谱和N₂吸附等表征,结果显示UiO-66-NH₂成功负载于气凝胶的孔道中,纤维素气凝胶掺杂了UiO-66-NH₂之后其孔道结构变得规整,并且比表面积增大。研究优化了复合气凝胶中UiO-66-NH₂的负载量对萃取的影响,高比例的负载量有利于西地那非的富集,并且最高的负载率为50%。研究优化了影响西地那非富集效率的实验条件,包括溶液pH、萃取时间、洗脱剂类型、洗脱时间、洗脱体积和离子强度。采用安捷伦Zorbax Eclipse Plus C18色谱柱(150 mm×4.6 mm, 5 μm)进行分离,以含0.1 mol/L三乙胺的磷酸盐水溶液(pH=6.50)-乙腈(30∶70, v/v)为流动相进行洗脱,检测波长为292 nm。在最佳的萃取条件下(pH为9.0,萃取时间为60 min,洗脱剂为乙腈,洗脱液体积为3×2 mL,洗脱时间为40 min),该分析方法的线性范围为10~2000 ng/mL (相关系数R²=0.9949),检出限(LOD, S/N=3)为2.85 ng/mL,富集因子为59.17。将该方法用于保健品中西地那非的萃取,所得回收率为74.93%~89.12%,相对标准偏差为2.8%~5.3%,表明了方法的回收率和精密度良好,说明了该方法具有应用于保健品中西地那非日常检测的潜力。

Rapid screening of illegal additives in functional food using atmospheric pressure solids analysis probe coupled to a portable mass spectrometer

Pharmaceutical drugs like Sildenafil are illegally added to functional food such as nutritional supplements and herbal remedies to deliver drugs without a regular prescription to consumers. Rapid screening of illegal additives is desirable for the public security department. The seized samples are often large in number and unknown in composition; methods are needed for qualitative screening of unknown samples. Here, a new approach is presented based on atmospheric pressure solids analysis probe (ASAP) coupled with single-quadrupole mass spectrometer to rapidly screen 42 common illegal additives in six categories of functional food. The ASAP-MS method could be applied to solid or liquid sample analysis with a very simple pre-treatment and no LC chromatographic separation, using a home-built library; the identification of suspicious additives could be obtained rapidly. More importantly, the approach is sensitive enough for complex matrix samples like coffee samples. 21 batches of seized unknown samples were tested by the ASAP-MS, and the positive results were confirmed by LC-MS/MS(QQQ), indicating that the ASAP-MS method is effective and reliable. The ASAP-MS with home-built library is a promising method for rapid screening of illegal additives in functional food, which could be widely used in the grassroots police station that lack professional laboratory environment.

Development of a group-specific antibody-based immunoassay method for simultaneously detecting sildenafil-like adulterants in herbal spirit drinks

Phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE-5) inhibitors are commonly used to treat erectile dysfunction. There is a problem with synthesis and illegal use of a wide range of analogues of the licenced drugs and a simple class-wide analytical method is required. In this work, based on structural modelling, we developed an immunological method using norneovardenafil as a hapten as it contains only the general sub-structure and the common features of sildenafil-like adulterants, such as hydrophobic centres, hydrogen-bond donor atoms and hydrogen-bond acceptor atoms. Thus theoretically it could induce production of antibody which could recognise multiple sildenafil-like adulterants. By immunising rabbits, a group-specific polyclonal antibody was obtained with the desired broad-spectrum molecular recognition performance against sildenafil-like adulterants. Then, an indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (icELISA) was developed for the detection of sildenafil-like adulterants in herbal spirit drinks. Under the optimised conditions, the icELISA method showed broad linear ranges for acetildenafil, sildenafil and vardenafil respectively of 0.7 to 27.7 μg/kg, 1.0 to 70.7 μg/kg and 1.5 to 22.7 μg/kg, with half-maximal inhibition concentration (IC₅₀) values of 4.5 μg/kg, 8.3 μg/kg and 5.7 μg/kg, respectively. For eleven herbal spirit drinks, there was good agreement between total levels of sildenafil-like adulterants measured by icELISA and levels of each of four individual adulterants determined by LC-MS/MS. In short, the developed icELISA can be employed for rapid and simple screening for adulteration of herbal spirit drinks with sildenafil-like compounds.

Rapid Discrimination of Halal and Non-halal Pharmaceutical Excipients by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Chemometrics

Introduction:

The appendage of “halal” to a product is not just a guarantee that the product is permitted for Muslims, but it has also become favorable lifestyle choice globally. However, the expansion of halal pharmaceutical market was hindered by lack of global halal standards for pharmaceutical ingredients and product integrity analytical methodology.

Objective:

This work aimed to explore the possibility of using Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and chemometrics to develop multivariate models to authenticate the “halal-ity” of pharmaceutical excipients with controversial halal status (e.g., magnesium stearate).

Materials and Methods:

The FTIR spectral fingerprints of the substance were used to build principal component analysis (PCA) models. The effects of different spectral pretreatment processes such as auto-scaling, baseline correction, standard normal variate (SNV), first, and second derivatives were evaluated. The optimization of the model performance was established to ensure the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the predicted models.

Results:

Significant peaks corresponding to the properties of the compound were identified. For both bovine and plant-derived magnesium stearate, the peaks associated can be seen within the regions 2900cm^-1 (C–H), 2800cm^-1 (CH₃), 1700cm^-1 (C=O), and 1000–1300cm^-1 (C–O). There was not much difference observed in the FTIR raw spectra of the samples from both sources. The quality and accuracy of the classification models by PCA and soft independent modeling classification analogy (SIMCA) have shown to improve using spectra optimized by first derivative followed by SNV smoothing.

Conclusion:

This rapid and cost-effective technique has the potential to be expanded as an authentication strategy for halal pharmaceuticals.

Analysis of Sildenafil in Liquor and Health Wine Using Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

The illegal adulteration of sildenafil in herbal food supplements and alcoholic drinks immensely threatens human health due to its harmful side-effects. Therefore, it is important to accurately detect and identify the presence of sildenafil in alcoholic drinks. In this study, Opto Trace Raman 202 (OTR 202) was used as surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) active colloids to detect sildenafil. The results demonstrated that the Raman enhancement factor (EF) of OTR 202 colloids reached 1.84 × 10⁷ and the limits of detection (LODs) of sildenafil in health wine and liquor were found to be as low as 0.1 mg/L. Moreover, the SERS peaks of 645, 814, 1235, 1401, 1530 and 1584 cm⁻¹ could be qualitatively determined as sildenafil characteristic peaks and the relationship between Raman peak intensity and sildenafil concentration in health wine and liquor were different. There was a good linear correlation between Raman peak intensity, and sildenafil concentration in health wine ranged 0.1–1 mg/L (0.9687< R² < 0.9891) and 1–10 mg/L (0.9701 < R² < 0.9840), and in liquor ranged 0.1–1 mg/L (0.9662 < R² < 0.9944) and 1–20 mg/L (0.9625 < R² < 0.9922). The relative standard deviations (RSD) were less than 5.90% (sildenafil in health wine) and 9.16% (sildenafil in liquor). The recovery ranged 88.92–104.42% (sildenafil in health wine) and 90.09–104.55% (sildenafil in liquor). In general, the sildenafil in health wine and liquor could be rapidly and quantitatively determined using SERS technique, which offered a simple and accurate alternative for the determination of sildenafil in alcoholic drinks.

Review on a Traditional Herbal Medicine, Eurycoma longifolia Jack (Tongkat Ali): Its Traditional Uses, Chemistry, Evidence-Based Pharmacology and Toxicology

Eurycoma longifolia Jack (known as tongkat ali), a popular traditional herbal medicine, is a flowering plant of the family Simaroubaceae, native to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and also Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. E. longifolia, is one of the well-known folk medicines for aphrodisiac effects as well as intermittent fever (malaria) in Asia. Decoctions of E. longifolia leaves are used for washing itches, while its fruits are used in curing dysentery. Its bark is mostly used as a vermifuge, while the taproots are used to treat high blood pressure, and the root bark is used for the treatment of diarrhea and fever. Mostly, the roots extract of E. longifolia are used as folk medicine for sexual dysfunction, aging, malaria, cancer, diabetes, anxiety, aches, constipation, exercise recovery, fever, increased energy, increased strength, leukemia, osteoporosis, stress, syphilis and glandular swelling. The roots are also used as an aphrodisiac, antibiotic, appetite stimulant and health supplement. The plant is reported to be rich in various classes of bioactive compounds such as quassinoids, canthin-6-one alkaloids, β-carboline alkaloids, triterpene tirucallane type, squalene derivatives and biphenyl neolignan, eurycolactone, laurycolactone, and eurycomalactone, and bioactive steroids. Among these phytoconstituents, quassinoids account for a major portion of the E. longifolia root phytochemicals. An acute toxicity study has found that the oral Lethal Dose 50 (LD50) of the alcoholic extract of E. longifolia in mice is between 1500-2000 mg/kg, while the oral LD50 of the aqueous extract form is more than 3000 mg/kg. Liver and renal function tests showed no adverse changes at normal daily dose and chronic use of E. longifolia. Based on established literature on health benefits of E. longifolia, it is important to focus attention on its more active constituents and the constituents' identification, determination, further development and most importantly, the standardization. Besides the available data, more evidence is required regarding its therapeutic efficacy and safety, so it can be considered a rich herbal source of new drug candidates. It is very important to conserve this valuable medicinal plant for the health benefit of future generations.

The Importance of Method Selection in Determining Product Integrity for Nutrition Research

The American Herbal Products Association estimates that there as many as 3000 plant species in commerce. The FDA estimates that there are about 85,000 dietary supplement products in the marketplace. The pace of product innovation far exceeds that of analytical methods development and validation, with new ingredients, matrixes, and combinations resulting in an analytical community that has been unable to keep up. This has led to a lack of validated analytical methods for dietary supplements and to inappropriate method selection where methods do exist. Only after rigorous validation procedures to ensure that methods are fit for purpose should they be used in a routine setting to verify product authenticity and quality. By following systematic procedures and establishing performance requirements for analytical methods before method development and validation, methods can be developed that are both valid and fit for purpose. This review summarizes advances in method selection, development, and validation regarding herbal supplement analysis and provides several documented examples of inappropriate method selection and application.

Simultaneous quantitation of six major quassinoids in Tongkat Ali dietary supplements by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry

Tongkat Ali (Eurycoma longifolia) is one of the most popular traditional herbs in Southeast Asia and generally consumed as forms of dietary supplements, tea, or drink additives for coffee or energy beverages. In this study, the liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry method for the simultaneous quantitation of six major quassinoids of Tongkat Ali (eurycomanone, 13,21-dihydroeurycomanone, 13α(21)-epoxyeurycomanone, 14,15β-dihydroxyklaineanone, eurycomalactone, and longilactone) was developed and validated. Using the developed method, the content of the six quassinoids was measured in Tongkat Ali containing dietary supplement tablets or capsules, and the resulting data were used to confirm the presence of Tongkat Ali in those products. Among the six quassinoids, eurycomanone was the most abundant quassinoid in all samples tested. The developed method would be useful for the quality assessment of Tongkat Ali containing dietary supplements.