Rapid and nondestructive determination of sesamin and sesamolin in Chinese sesames by near-infrared spectroscopy coupling with chemometric method

Rapid evaluation of Radix Paeoniae Alba and its processed products by near-infrared spectroscopy combined with multivariate algorithms

It is well known that the processing method of herbal medicine has a complex impact on the active components and clinical efficacy, which is difficult to measure. As a representative herb medicine with diverse processing methods, Radix Paeoniae Alba (RPA) and its processed products differ greatly in clinical efficacy. However, in some cases, different processed products are confused for use in clinical practice. Therefore, it is necessary to strictly control the quality of RPA and its processed products. Giving that the time-consuming and laborious operation of traditional quality control methods, a comprehensive strategy of near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy combined with multivariate algorithms was proposed. This strategy has the advantages of being rapid and non-destructive, not only qualitatively distinguishing RPA and various processed products but also enabling quantitative prediction of five bioactive components. Qualitatively, the subspace clustering algorithm successfully differentiated RPA and three processed products, with an accuracy rate of 97.1%; quantitatively, interval combination optimization (ICO), competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS), and competitive adaptive reweighted sampling combined with successive projections algorithm (CARS-SPA) were used to optimize the PLS model, and satisfactory results were obtained in terms of wavelength selection. In conclusion, it is feasible to use NIR spectroscopy to rapidly evaluate the effect of processing methods on the quality of RPA, which provides a meaningful reference for quality control of other herbal medicines with numerous processing methods.

Inner Properties Estimation of Gala Apple Using Spectral Data and Two Statistical and Artificial Intelligence Based Methods

Fruits provide various vitamins to the human body. The chemical properties of fruits provide useful information to researchers, including determining the ripening time of fruits and the lack of nutrients in them. Conventional methods for determining the chemical properties of fruits are destructive and time-consuming methods that have no application for online operations. For that, various researchers have conducted various studies on non-destructive methods, which are currently in the research and development stage. Thus, the present paper focusses on a non-destructive method based on spectral data in the 200-1100-nm region for estimation of total soluble solids and BrimA in Gala apples. The work steps included: (1) collecting different samples of Gala apples at different stages of maturity; (2) extracting spectral data of samples and pre-preprocessing them; (3) measuring the chemical properties of TSS and BrimA; (4) selecting optimal (effective) wavelengths using artificial neural network-simulated annealing algorithm (ANN-SA); and (5) estimating chemical properties based on partial least squares regression (PLSR) and hybrid artificial neural network known as the imperialist competitive algorithm (ANN-ICA). It should be noted that, in order to investigate the validity of the methods, the estimation algorithm was repeated 500 times. In the end, the results displayed that, in the best training, the ANN-ICA predicted the TSS and BrimA with correlation coefficients of 0.963 and 0.965 and root mean squared error of 0.167% and 0.596%, respectively.

An Insight into Sesamolin: Physicochemical Properties, Pharmacological Activities, and Future Research Prospects

Sesame seeds are rich in lignan content and have been well-known for their health benefits. Unlike the other sesame lignan compounds (i.e., sesamin and sesamol), the study of the pharmacological activity of sesamolin has not been explored widely. This review, therefore, summarizes the information related to sesamolin’s pharmacological activities, and the mechanism of action. Moreover, the influence of its physicochemical properties on pharmacological activity is also discussed. Sesamolin possessed neuroprotective activity against hypoxia-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative stress in neuron cells by reducing the ROS and inhibiting apoptosis. In skin cancer, sesamolin exhibited antimelanogenesis by affecting the expression of the melanogenic enzymes. The anticancer activity of sesamolin based on antiproliferation and inhibition of migration was demonstrated in human colon cancer cells. In addition, treatment with sesamolin could stimulate immune cells to enhance the cytolytic activity to kill Burkitt’s lymphoma cells. However, the toxicity and safety of sesamolin have not been reported. And there is also less information on the experimental study in vivo. The limited aqueous solubility of sesamolin becomes the main problem, which affects its pharmacological activity in the in vitro experiment and clinical efficacy. Therefore, solubility enhancement is needed for further investigation and determination of its pharmacological activity profiles. Since there are fewer reports studying this issue, it could become a future prospective research opportunity.