Chemical and metabolic profiling of Codonopsis Radix extract with an integrated strategy using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry

Codonopsis radix was commonly used as food materials or herbal medicines in many countries. However, the comprehensive analysis of chemical constituents, and in vivo xenobiotics of Codonopsis radix remain unclear. In the present study, an integrated strategy with feature-based molecular networking using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry was established to systematically screen the chemical constituents and the in vivo xenobiotics of Codonopsis radix. A step-by-step manner based on a composition database, visual structure classification, discriminant ions, and metabolite software prediction was proposed to overcome the complexities due to the similar structure of chemical constituents and metabolites of Codonopsis radix. As a result, 103 compounds were tentatively characterized, 20 of which were identified by reference standards. Besides, a total of 50 xenobiotics were detected in vivo, including 26 prototypes and 24 metabolites, while the metabolic features of the pyrrolidine alkaloids were elucidated for the first time. The metabolism reactions of pyrrolidine alkaloids and sesquiterpene lactones included oxidation, methylation, hydration, hydrogenation, demethylation, glucuronidation, and sulfation. This study provided a generally applicable approach to the comprehensive investigation of the chemical and metabolic profile of traditional Chinese medicine and offered reasonable guidelines for further screening of quality control indicators and pharmacodynamics mechanism of Codonopsis radix.

Rapid screening of bioactive compound in Sanzi Yangqin Decoction and investigating of binding mechanism by immobilized β2-adrenogic receptor chromatography coupled with molecular docking

Screening bioactive compounds from traditional Chinese medicines plays pivotal role in preventing and curing diseases. Sanzi Yangqin Decoction (SYD) is a commonly used prescription for the treatment of cough, asthma and some other respiratory diseases for hundreds of years in practice. This reminds us that there may exist some bioactive compounds strongly binding with the recognized receptors mediating these diseases like β₂-adrenegic receptor (β₂-AR). Therefore, this work intends to screen bioactive compounds from SYD and revealed the binding mechanism by immobilized β₂-AR chromatography and molecular docking. Taking advantages of a 3-high based enzymatic trans-methylation reaction (high speed, high specificity and high activity), the immobilization of β₂-AR was successfully achieved. Representative chromatographic peaks of SYD on the immobilized β₂-AR column was collected and recognized as rosmarinic acid and sinapine thiocyanate. Tension changes of the trachea ring showed that the two compounds were in a concentration-dependent manner when exerting their effects and the concentration ranges were 10^-9-10^-4 mol/L and 10^-12-10^-7 mol/L, respectively. Molecular docking revealed Ser203, Ser204, Ser207, Tyr316 and Asn312 were the main residues for the two compounds to bind with β₂-AR. We concluded that the proposed method is becoming an alternative in rapid recognizing bioactive compounds from complex matrix.

Modern microextraction techniques for natural products

Natural product analysis has gained wide attention in recent years, especially for herbal medicines, which contain complex ingredients and play a significant clinical role in the therapy of numerous diseases. The constituents of natural products are usually found at low concentrations, and the matrices are complex. Thus, the extraction of target compounds from natural products before analysis by analytical instruments is very significant for human health and its wide application. The commonly used traditional extraction methods are time-consuming, using large amounts of sample and organic solvents, as well as expensive and inefficient. Recently, microextraction techniques have been used for natural product extraction to overcome the disadvantages of conventional extraction methods. In this paper, the successful applications of and recent developments in microextraction techniques including solvent-based and sorbent-based microextraction methods, in natural product analysis in recent years, especially in the last 5 years, are reviewed for the first time. Their features, advantages, disadvantages, and future development trends are also discussed.

High-throughput liquid chromatography mass-spectrometry-driven lipidomics discover metabolic biomarkers and pathways as promising targets to reveal the therapeutic effects of the Shenqi pill

Lipidomics, a branch of metabonomics, could provide a powerful technique for discovery of lipid molecules to reveal disease status and drug efficacy.

Novel applications of mass spectrometry-based metabolomics in herbal medicines and its active ingredients: Current evidence

Current evidence shows that herbal medicines could be beneficial for the treatment of various diseases. However, the complexities present in chemical compositions of herbal medicines are currently an obstacle for the progression of herbal medicines, which involve unclear bioactive compounds, mechanisms of action, undetermined targets for therapy, non-specific features for drug metabolism, etc. To overcome those issues, metabolomics can be a great to improve and understand herbal medicines from the small-molecule metabolism level. Metabolomics could solve scientific difficulties with herbal medicines from a metabolic perspective, and promote drug discovery and development. In recent years, mass spectrometry-based metabolomics was widely applied for the analysis of herbal constituents in vivo and in vitro. In this review, we highlight the value of mass spectrometry-based metabolomics and metabolism to address the complexity of herbal medicines in systems pharmacology, and to enhance their biomedical value in biomedicine, to shed light on the aid that mass spectrometry-based metabolomics can offer to the investigation of its active ingredients, especially, to link phytochemical analysis with the assessment of pharmacological effect and therapeutic potential. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Mass Spec Rev.

Rapid discovery of quality-markers from Kaixin San using chinmedomics analysis approach

BACKGROUND

Alzheimer's disease (AD), a progressive neurodegenerative disease, is more common disease of dementia among the elderly by multiple factors and presents enormous challenges in terms of diagnosis and treatment. Kaixin San (KXS), is a classic prescription for the treatment of memory decline and applied for AD nowadays. However, the quality-markers of KXS for the treatment of AD remain unclear.

PURPOSE

To investigate the effects and potential quality-markers of KXS against an APP/PS1 transgenic mouse model of AD.

METHODS

Two month old APP/PS1 transgenic model mice of AD were orally given KXS for 10 month to intervene. Through the novel object recognition (NOR), the classic Morris water maze (MWM), immunohistochemistry detection of Aβ1-42, Hematoxylin-eosin staining (HE), blood metabolic profiling evaluated the therapeutic effect of KXS on AD. PCMS software was applied to analysis correlations between biomarkers and serum constituents and became a powerful tool for excavating effective material basis. Behavior, histopathology and Chinmedomics were applied for assessing the efficacy and discovering potential quality-markers.

RESULTS

The result of MWM showed oral KXS could shorten the escape latency and increased the times of crossing the platform. The result of NOR showed oral KXS increased discrimination index (DI). Though the histopathology, KXS reduced the necrosis of neuron in brain tissue and the deposition of Aβ1-42. Chinmedomics strategy was used to analyze the biomarkers and blood components. KXS called back 20 biomarkers of AD. The effective material basis of KXS was ginsenoside Rf, ginsenoside F1, 20-O-glucopyranosyl ginsenoside Rf, dehydropachymic acid and E-3, 4, 5-trimethoxycinnamic acid.

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrate that KXS significantly improved cognitive function of transgenic mice of AD, repaired the damage caused by Aβ, regulated amino acid metabolism and lipid metabolism abnormalities and determined the effective material basis of KXS treating AD. Clarifying the quality-markers of KXS can establish scientific quality standard to reflect the safety and effectiveness of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

Mass spectrometry-driven drug discovery for development of herbal medicine

Herbal medicine (HM) has made a major contribution to the drug discovery process with regard to identifying products compounds. Currently, more attention has been focused on drug discovery from natural compounds of HM. Despite the rapid advancement of modern analytical techniques, drug discovery is still a difficult and lengthy process. Fortunately, mass spectrometry (MS) can provide us with useful structural information for drug discovery, has been recognized as a sensitive, rapid, and high-throughput technology for advancing drug discovery from HM in the post-genomic era. It is essential to develop an efficient, high-quality, high-throughput screening method integrated with an MS platform for early screening of candidate drug molecules from natural products. We have developed a new chinmedomics strategy reliant on MS that is capable of capturing the candidate molecules, facilitating their identification of novel chemical structures in the early phase; chinmedomics-guided natural product discovery based on MS may provide an effective tool that addresses challenges in early screening of effective constituents of herbs against disease. This critical review covers the use of MS with related techniques and methodologies for natural product discovery, biomarker identification, and determination of mechanisms of action. It also highlights high-throughput chinmedomics screening methods suitable for lead compound discovery illustrated by recent successes.

GC-MS Fingerprinting Combined with Chemometric Methods Reveals Key Bioactive Components in Acori Tatarinowii Rhizoma

This present study aims to identify the key bioactive components in acorus tatarinowii rhizoma (ATR), a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with various bioactivities. Partial least squares regression (PLSR) was employed to describe the relationship between the radical scavenging activity and the volatile components. The PLSR model was improved by outlier elimination and variable selection and was evaluated by 10-fold cross-validation and external validation in this study. Based on the PLSR model, eleven chemical components were identified as the key bioactive components by variable importance in projection. The final PLS regression model with these components has good predictive ability. The Q² was 0.8284, and the root mean square error for prediction was 2.9641. The results indicated that the eleven components could be a pattern to predict the radical scavenging activity of ATR. In addition, we did not find any specific relationship between the radical scavenging ability and the habitat of the ATRs. This study proposed an efficient strategy to predict bioactive components using the combination of quantitative chromatography fingerprints and PLS regression, and has potential perspective for screening bioactive components in complex analytical systems, such as TCM.

Identification and determination of the major constituents in Kai-Xin-San by UPLC-Q/TOF MS and UFLC-MS/MS method

In order to have overall chemical material information of Kai-Xin-San (KXS), the reliable ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer (UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS) and ultra-fast liquid chromatography mass spectrometer (UFLC-MS/MS) methods were developed for the identification and determination of the major constituents in KXS. Moreover, the UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS method was also applied to screen for multiple absorbed components in rat plasma after oral administration of KXS. The UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS method was achieved on Agilent 6520 Q-TOF mass and operated in the negative ion mode. Good separation was performed on a ZORBAX Eclipse Plus C18 column with a gradient elution at a flow rate of 0.2 ml/min. A total of 92 compounds in KXS were identified or tentatively characterized based on their exact molecular weights, fragmentation patterns, and literature data. A total of 26 compounds including 23 prototype components and three metabolites were identified in rat plasma after oral administration of KXS. Then, 16 major bioactive constituents were chosen as the benchmark substances to evaluate the quality of KXS. Their quantitative analyses were performed by a triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer (MS/MS) operating in multiple-reaction monitoring mode(MRM). The analysis was completed with a gradient elution at a flow rate of 0.4 ml/min within 35 min. The simple and fast method was validated and showed good linearity, precision, and recovery. Furthermore, the method was successful applied for the determination of 16 compounds in KXS. All results would provide essential data for identification and quality control of active chemical constituents in KXS. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

UHPLC-FT-ICR-MS combined with serum pharmacochemistry for bioactive compounds discovery of Zhi-Zi-Da-Huang-decoction against alcohol-induced hepatotoxicity in rats

In this study, a comprehensive strategy based on UHPLC-FT-ICR-MS and serum pharmacochemistry was developed to reveal the bioactive constituents of Zhi-Zi-Da-Huang decoction against alcohol-induced hepatotoxicity in rats after oral administration.

Urinary UPLC-MS metabolomics dissecting the underlying mechanisms of Huaxian capsule protects against sepsis

Urinary UPLC-MS metabolomics could dissect the underlying mechanisms of HXC protects against SS.