Imipenem is a carbapenem antibiotic. However, Imipenem could not be marketed owing to its instability and nephrotoxicity until cilastatin, an inhibitor of renal dehydropeptidase-I (DHP-I), was developed. In present study, the potential roles of renal organic anion transporters (OATs) in alleviating the nephrotoxicity of imipenem by cilastatin were investigated and in rabbits. Our results indicated that imipenem and cilastatin were substrates of hOAT1 and hOAT3. Cilastatin inhibited hOAT1/3-mediated transport of imipenem with IC values comparable to the clinical concentration, suggesting the potential to cause a clinical drug-drug interaction (DDI). Moreover, imipenem exhibited hOAT1/3-dependent cytotoxicity, which was alleviated by cilastatin and probenecid. Furthermore, cilastatin and probenecid ameliorated imipenem-induced rabbit acute kidney injury, and reduced the renal secretion of imipenem. Cilastatin and probenecid inhibited intracellular accumulation of imipenem and sequentially decreased the nephrocyte toxicity in rabbit primary proximal tubule cells. Renal OATs, besides DHP-I, was also the target of interaction between imipenem and cilastatin, and contributed to the nephrotoxicity of imipenem. This therefore gives in part the explanation about the mechanism by which cilastatin protected against imipenem-induced nephrotoxicity. Thus, OATs can potentially be used as a therapeutic target to avoid the renal adverse reaction of imipenem in clinic.

In order to clarify regions of production and to discriminate processing methods, quantitative and qualitative analyses for saccharides and terpenes in 35 batches of Alismatis Rhizoma were performed. Methodologies included HPLC-PDA, HPLC-VWD and UHPLC-MS , combined with principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares regression techniques (PLSR). The inhibitory effects of triterpenes and Alismatis Rhizoma extracts on lipase activity were evaluated . PLSR analysis revealed significant positive correlations ( = 0.5795) between the contents of triterpenes , , , and and the inhibitory effects of Alismatis Rhizoma. The present study establishes an effective method for simultaneous determination of multiple components, and identifies key bioactive triterpenes. These results can be used for systematic and novel analytical strategies for the quality control of Alismatis Rhizoma production.

Human cytosolic sulfotransferase 2A1 (SULT2A1) is an important phase II metabolic enzyme. The detection of SULT2A1 is helpful for the functional characterization of SULT2A1 and diagnosis of its related diseases. However, due to the overlapping substrate specificity among members of the sulfotransferase family, it is difficult to develop a probe substrate for selective detection of SULT2A1. In the present study, through characterization of the sulfation of series of bufadienolides, arenobufagin (AB) was proved as a potential probe substrate for SULT2A1 with high sensitivity and specificity. Subsequently, the sulfation of AB was characterized by experimental and molecular docking studies. The sulfate-conjugated metabolite was identified as AB-3-sulfate. The sulfation of AB displayed a high selectivity for SULT2A1 which was confirmed by reaction phenotyping assays. The sulfation of AB by human liver cytosols and recombinant SULT2A1 both obeyed Michaelis-Menten kinetics, with similar kinetic parameters. Molecular docking was performed to understand the interaction between AB and SULT2A1, in which the lack of interaction with Met-137 and Tyr-238 of SULT2A1 made it possible to eliminate substrate inhibition of AB sulfation. Finally, the probe was successfully used to determine the activity of SULT2A1 and its isoenzymes in tissue preparations of human and laboratory animals.