The study is aimed to investigate the effect of lamivudine on growth and metabolism of three intestinal characteristic bacteria (namely, Bifidobacterium adolescentis, Escherichia coli and Shigella dysenteriae). The growth condition of the three bacteria was quantitatively evaluated by microcalorimetry with four characteristic parameters of the thermal power-time curves, including the growth rate constant (k), thermal power (p), time to peak (t) and calorific value (Q). The results showed that the IC50 value of lamivudine on B. adolescentis was 200 microg x mL(-1), and the IC50 values of lamivudine on S. dysenteriae and E. coli were higher than 3 000 microg x mL(-1) and 6 000 microg x mL(1), respectively. Therefore, lamivudine made different inhibitory effects on the three bacteria, in which the B. adolescentis was most susceptible to lamivudine. This work showed that taking lamivudine chronically is likely to affect the balance of good flora in the intestinal tract, and might increase endotoxin release, leading to inflammation and disease progression in hepatopathy.

The study is to report the establishment of a method of screening the antitumor compounds based on the dynamic bio-response profile of cells to make up for the shortages of conventional end-point tests such as tedious operation and low sensitivity. Based on the principle of electric impedance of cells, the real-time cell electronic sensing (RT-CES) system was used to monitor the effect of epirubicin (EPI), cisplatinum (DDP) and carboplatin (CBP) on the growth of HepG2 cells, with the cell index (CI), half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) and detachment curve as evaluation indexes. Meanwhile, cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) and microscopy were applied for verification. The results showed that CI curve could sensitively real-time profile the inhibitory effect of model drugs on HepG2 cells. The IC50 of EPI, DDP and CBP were 0.53 +/- 0.04, 9.79 +/- 0.26 and 597.00 +/- 3.79 microg x mL(-1), respectively. What's more, the significant differences of detachment curves of the three drugs indicated that their functional mechanisms might be different, this is consistent with the literature. The RT-CES system with non-invasive, label-free and real-time characteristics could be used to monitor the bio-response profile of the three drugs to HepG2 cells, allowing to qualitatively and quantitatively distinguish the antitumor activities of the three drugs, and could be a complementary method for the present screening of antitumor compounds.

This study aims at trying to establish a novel method of sterility test for injections based on biothermodynamics, in order to overcome the deficiencies of routine sterility tests such as long detecting cycle, low sensitivity and prone to misjudgments. A biothermodynamics method was adopted to rapidly detect the microorganism contamination of injections by monitoring the heat metabolism during the growth of microbe. The growth rate equal to or greater than zero and the heat power difference of P(i) and P(0) with three folds higher than the noise of baseline were chosen as indexes to study the heat change rule of microbe. In this way, the effectiveness of the new method to detect strains required by conventional sterility test or in injection samples was also investigated. Results showed that the Gram-positive bacteria, Gram-negative bacteria and fungi demanded by sterility testing methodology could be detected by biothermodynamics method within 10 hours, with the sensitivity lower than 100 CFU x mL(-1). Meanwhile, this method was successfully applied to the sterility test of Compound Yinchen injection (FFYC), Shuanghuanglian powder injection (SHL) and Compound Triamcinolone injection (TAND) which were sterilized with different degrees. Therefore, the biothermodynamics method, with advantages of fast detection and high sensitivity, could be a complementary solution for conventional sterility tests.

Objective: The present study aimed to explore the rationality of peeling process of Pruni semen through the determination of amygdalin. Methods: The content of amarogentin in seed coat, seed kernel and total seed of Pruni semen, respectively, were determined by HPLC according to the methods of content determination under Pruni semen in Chinese Pharmacopeia (2015). The chromatographic column was Inertsil ODS-SP C18 (4.6 mm×150 mm, 5 μm). The gradient elution with acetonitrile-water as mobile phase was performed. The flow velocity was 0.6 ml/min, the column temperature was 40 ℃, and the wavelength was 210 nm. Results: The average recovery rate (n=6) was 98.26%. The sample was stable within 24 h, and the RSD (n=6) was 1.12%. The quality of control products was good in the range of 0.02-0.40 μg. The analysis indicated that there is no significant differences (P>0.05) in the contents of amygdalin in seed coat, seed kernel and total seed of Pruni semen. Conclusions With the content of amygdalin as the index of evaluation, the Pruni semen had better not be peeled.

The main constituents of a typical medicinal herb,Polygonum muMflorum (Heshouwu in Chinese),that induces idiosyncratic liver injury remain unclear.Our previous work has shown that cotreatment with a nontoxic dose of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and therapeutic dose of Heshouwu can induce liver injury in rats,whereas the solo treatment cannot induce observable injury.In the present work,using the constituent "knock-out" and "knock-in" strategy,we found that the ethyl acetate (EA) extract of Heshouwu displayed comparable idiosyncratic hepatotoxicity to the whole extract in LPS-treated rats.Results indicated a significant elevation of plasma alanine aminotransferase,aspartate aminotransferase,and liver histologic changes,whereas other separated fractions failed to induce liver injury.The mixture of EA extract with other separated fractions induced comparable idiosyncratic hepatotoxicity to the whole extract in LPS-treated rats.Chemical analysis further revealed that 2,3,5,4'-tetrahydroxy trans-stilbene-2-O-β-glucoside (trans-SG) and its cis-isomer were the two major compounds in EA extract.Furthermore,the isolated cis-,and not its trans-isomer,displayed comparable idiosyncratic hepatotoxicity to EA extract in LPS-treated rats.Higher contents of cis-SG were detected in Heshouwu liquor or preparations from actual liver intoxication patients associated with Heshouwu compared with general collected samples.In addition,plasma metabolomics analysis showed that cis-SG-disturbing enriched pathways remarkably differed from trans-SG ones in LPS-treated rats.All these results suggested that cis-SG was closely associated with the idiosyncratic hepatotoxicity of Heshouwu.Considering that the cis-trans isomerization of transSG was mediated by ultraviolet light or sunlight,our findings serve as reference for controlling photoisomerization in drug discovery and for the clinical use of Heshouwu and stilbene-related medications.