There is no doubt that the traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) is effective, practical and scientific after it was used for thousands of years. However, the mechanisms of action of many TCM are still unclear because of their multi-component, multi-target and multi-level features, which hinder the modernization and internationalization of the TCM. Proteomics is to analyze the composition and activity of intracellular proteins which are changing dynamically from a holistic perspective. It is consistent with the holistic and dynamic views of the TCM and brings about the hope of clarifying the mechanism of action of the TCM. In recent years, great progress has been made in the application of proteomics to determine the mechanism of the TCM. This article introduced the core technologies of proteomics and systematically summarized the applications of proteomics in the study of the mechanism of the Chinese medicinal formulae, single Chinese medicine and monomeric compounds from the TCM to provide innovative ideas and methods for reference.

The genus Ephedra of the Ephedraceae family contains more than 60 species of nonflowering seed plants distributed throughout Asia, America, Europe, and North Africa. These Ephedra species have medicinal, ecological, and economic value. This review aims to summarize the chemical constituents and pharmacological activities of the Ephedra species to unveil opportunities for future research. Comprehensive information on the Ephedra species was collected by electronic search (e.g., GoogleScholar, Pubmed, SciFinder, and Web of Science) and phytochemical books. The chemical compounds isolated from the Ephedra species include alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, polysaccharides, and others. The in vitro and in vivo pharmacological studies on the crude extracts, fractions and few isolated compounds of Ephedra species showed anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antibacterial, antioxidant, hepatoprotective, anti-obesity, antiviral, and diuretic activities. After chemical and pharmacological profiling, current research is focused on the antibacterial and antifungal effects of the phenolic acid compounds, the immunosuppressive activity of the polysaccharides, and the antitumor activity of flavonoids.
Animals ; Anti-Infective Agents ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Antioxidants ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Antiviral Agents ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Ephedra ; chemistry ; Humans

Objective To discuss the possibility for regeneration of knee joint with normal function under bionics biomechanical environment. Methods Seven normal rabbits with two metal frames respectively mounted on their femur and tibia of single (right) side leg by two threading pins of 1.5 mm diameter were used. Then the external artificial joints, containing two four-bar-linkage inside and outside of the knee to simulate motion trajectory of the joint in sagital plane were connected with the two preset fixed frames before osteotomy. The arthro-cartilage of the knee joint, crucial ligaments, semi-lunar fibro-cartilages, and partial under-cartilage-osseous intra articular capsule were cut off during osteotomy, with the patella, sesamoid bones remained intact. Insertion sites of muscle tendons were not invaded as far as possible, and capsules with ligaments outside were kept complete when the incision wound was closed by suture. The rabbits could move freely after osteotomy. The range of motion (ROM) of the knees in sagital plane and bony gap between the femur and tibia were measured by X-Ray films during the fracture healing after osteotomy. Results External artificial knee joints were successfully installed on right legs of 6 rabbits among the seven. The rabbits moved freely after osteotomy under the control of minimal invasive external artificial joint in bionics trajectory. The average angles between femoral shaft and tibial shaft at the 1st week after osteotomy were from (144.7±15.62)° in extremely flexed position to (44.2±25.77)° in extremely extended position, with ROM of (100.5±29.03)°. At the 12th week, the average angles were from (139.4 ± 12.92)° in extremely flexed position to (40.4±22.04)° in extremely extended position, with ROM of (99.0±23.39)°. No significant differences were displayed in flexed/extended position and ROM between the 1st and 12th week, with the bony gaps of the knees still existed but decreased significantly from (4.03±1.84) mm at the 1st week to (2.32±1.05) mm at the 12th week. In contrast, bony gaps of the opposite knees were not changed significantly, which were (1.27±0.22) mm on average. At the end of 16th week after osteotomy, the external artificial joints were removed. Newly born cartilage, with white color and smooth surface, were covered at lower end of the femur and upper end of the tibia. Typical trochlear surface appeared at the front side of regenerated cartilage corresponding to the posterior surface of the patella. And the regenerated fibro-bundle linkage similar with ligament, which started from bony structure of regenerated lower end of the femur and inserted into regenerated upper end of the tibia, was observed in each rabbit. At the 25th week, the average angles between femoral shaft and tibial shaft were from (148.3 ± 4.75)° in extremely flexed position to (48.30±17.57)° in extremely extended position, with ROM of (100.0±20.80)°. In the opposite (left) leg, the average angles between femoral shaft and tibial shaft were from (148.3±7.5)° in extremely flexed position to (21.6±9.09)° in extremely extended position, with ROM of (126.7±6.88)°, and the average bony gap of the knees after osteotomy was (1.4±0.59) mm, while that of the opposite (left) knees was (0.92±0.35) mm. Conclusions The external artificial joint with bionics trajectory could reserve the space for regeneration of rabbit knee joint by providing motion modeling environment, and proved the stress adaption during fracture healing. The present results indicated that regeneration of the knee joint after intra-capsular osteotomy in bionics biomechanical environment was possible.

OBJECTIVETo establish a method integrating multi-targets for determining critical process parameters of the manufacturing process of traditional Chinese medicine.

METHODThe ethanol precipitation process of Danhong injection was taken as an application case of the method established. Fractional factorial design of experiments were conducted. Mathematical models relating seven process parameters to ten targets in the ethanol precipitation process were established. Then the sums of the absolute values of the regression coefficients in the models were used to evaluate the criticality of process parameters.

RESULTWater content in the concentrate, ethanol concentration and ethanol consumption were identified as the critical process parameters.

CONCLUSIONThe method established can integrate multi-targets effectively for the evaluation of critical process parameters.

Chemical Precipitation ; Chemistry, Pharmaceutical ; methods ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; Salvia miltiorrhiza ; chemistry

In this work, a feedforward control strategy basing on the concept of quality by design was established for the manufacturing process of traditional Chinese medicine to reduce the impact of the quality variation of raw materials on drug. In the research, the ethanol precipitation process of Danhong injection was taken as an application case of the method established. Box-Behnken design of experiments was conducted. Mathematical models relating the attributes of the concentrate, the process parameters and the quality of the supernatants produced were established. Then an optimization model for calculating the best process parameters basing on the attributes of the concentrate was built. The quality of the supernatants produced by ethanol precipitation with optimized and non-optimized process parameters were compared. The results showed that using the feedforward control strategy for process parameters optimization can control the quality of the supernatants effectively. The feedforward control strategy proposed can enhance the batch-to-batch consistency of the supernatants produced by ethanol precipitation.
Chemical Precipitation ; Chemistry, Pharmaceutical ; methods ; standards ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; Quality Improvement ; Salvia miltiorrhiza ; chemistry

Extraction process trajectory of Danhong injection by near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy in conjunction with multivariate data analysis techniques was developed for in-line monitoring of extraction process. To capture the variation of batch process, the use of score, Hotelling T2 and DModX control charts was investigated for real-time monitoring of extraction process. Various abnormal behaviors of the test batches were detected in time by comparing the extraction process trajectory. It was concluded that the process trajectory for in-line quality control based on NIR spectroscopy was a feasible technology tool of the total process quality control during traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) manufacturing process.
Chemistry, Pharmaceutical ; methods ; standards ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; Online Systems ; Quality Control ; Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared ; methods

OBJECTIVETo establish a rapid quantitative analysis method for the quality control of Danhong injection extraction using near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy.

METHODOnline collecting the NIR spectra during the mixed extraction process of Salvia miltiorrhiza and Carthamus tinctorius, partial least squares regression (PLSR) models were developed for the quality indicators rosmarinic acid (RA), salvia acid B (SaB), lithospermic acid (LA), hydroxysafflor yellow A (HSYA) and solid content (SSC), with HPLC and weight-loss method as reference methods.

RESULTThe correlation coefficients of the cross validation for RA, SaB, LA, HSYA and SSC were 0.909 3, 0.915 2, 0.901 9, 0.747 7 and 0.931 4, respectively. And the root mean square errors of cross validation (RMSECV) were 0.012 1, 0.251, 0.017 7, 0.038 1 g x L(-1) and 0.359%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONIn this study, NIR spectroscopy was successfully applied to achieve the real-time determination of the contents of RA, SaB, LA and SSC, while the performance of the HSYA calibration model needed to be improved.

Carthamus tinctorius ; chemistry ; Chemistry, Pharmaceutical ; methods ; standards ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; analysis ; isolation & purification ; Online Systems ; Salvia miltiorrhiza ; chemistry ; Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared ; methods

AIM: To investigate antioxidant activities and life span prolonging effects of the extracts from the roots of Incarvillea younghusbandii Sprague, and to study the correlations between these activities and the polar intensity of the extracts. METHOD: Five extracts (IYS1, IYS2, IYS3, IYS4 and YS5) with different polar intensity were prepared. Antioxidant activities in vitro were determined by LPO inhibitory and free radicals scavenging experiments. Life span prolonging effects in vivo were evaluated by feeding Drosophila melanogaster. RESULT: Total phenolic content in extracts were solvent-dependent and decreased in the order of IYS4 > IYS1 > IYS3 > IYS5 > IYS2. Organic extracts (IYS1 and IYS4) showed excellent LPO inhibitory activity, O(2)(· -) and ·OH scavenging activity compared to ascorbic acid (or benzoic acid, or BHT), while aqueous extracts (IYS2, IYS3 and IYS5) did not. The antioxidant activities (in vitro) were solvent dependent and decreased in the order of IYS4 > IYS1 > IYS3 > IYS5 ≥ IYS2. Drosophila melanogaster was fed with organic extracts (IYS1 or IYS4) at 5.0 mg mL(-1). The mean life span were increased by 24.4% (IYS1) or 23.0% (IYS4) in female and 15.3% (IYS1) or 16.9% (IYS4) in male; the maximum life span were increased by 8.4% (IYS1) or 11.2% (IYS4) in female and 9.7% (IYS1) or 15.8% (IYS4) in male, and the survival curves were significantly shifted to the right after fifteen days in both sexes survival period. Feeding aqueous extracts (IYS2, IYS3 or IYS5) at 5.0 mg·mL(-1), the significant life span prolonging effects were not achieved. The life span prolonging effects of the extracts were solvent-dependent and decreased in the order of IYS4 ≥ IYS1 > IYS3 > IYS2 > IYS5. CONCLUSION Extracts from the roots of Incarvillea younghusbandii Sprague showed excellent antioxidant activities and significant life span prolonging effects in Drosophila melanogaster. Positive correlations existed between the antioxidant activities and total phenolic content. Life span prolonging effect was positively correlated with the total phenolic content or antioxidant activities. The extracts possess better life span prolonging effect in females than in males.
Animals ; Antioxidants ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Bignoniaceae ; chemistry ; Drosophila melanogaster ; drug effects ; Female ; Lipid Peroxidation ; drug effects ; Longevity ; drug effects ; Male ; Phenols ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Plant Extracts ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Plant Roots ; chemistry ; Sex Factors

OBJECTIVETo observe the clinicopathological characteristics of gastric cancer with pathological complete response(pCR) following neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

METHODSData of gastric cancer patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy from 2002 to 2008 in the Beijing Cancer Hospital were reviewed. Five cases were found to have pCR. The slides were reviewed by two experienced pathologists independently. Histological structure, morphology of tumor cells, morphology and quantity of stromal cells were evaluated.

RESULTSStructure of the gastric wall was distinguishable in all the 5 cases, while distortion and rupture of muscular layer were found in 2 cases. Exudative inflammatory reaction was present in the whole gastric wall including the serosa layer. Three patients had ulcerative lesions with epithelial layer shedding, and atypical hyperplasia was found around the border of the ulcer, and vascular endothelial cells were swollen. Residual distorted necrotic tumor cells resided in 1 case only and no residual tumor cells was present in the other 4 patients. Significant hyperplasia of fibroblasts was present in 4 cases, large amount of lymphocytes infiltration in 3 cases including concurrent plasma cell infiltration in 1 case, multinucleated giant cell reaction in the muscular layer of 1 case, and foam cells aggregation in 1 case with mucinous adenocarcinoma. In addition, there were 2 cases with pCR had lymph node metastasis.

CONCLUSIONSFor cases with pCR following neoadjuvant chemotherapy, heterogeneity of stromal cells reaction is found in previous tumor site. Furthermore, the response of primary tumor does not necessarily parallel to that of lymph nodes.

Adult ; Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols ; therapeutic use ; Female ; Humans ; Lymphatic Metastasis ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neoadjuvant Therapy ; Stomach Neoplasms ; drug therapy ; pathology

Using a bioassay-guided fractionation technique, two compounds were isolated from the roots of Incarvillea younghusbandii Sprague through silica gel, reverse-phase C18 column chromatography and reverse-phase HPLC. Their structures were identified as acteoside (1) and isoacteoside (2) by ESI-MS, GC-MS, 1D- and 2D-NMR. 1 and 2 showed *OH scavenging capacity similar with benzoic acid, higher O2*- (or *OH) scavenging capacity than ascorbic acid, far higher hepatic LPO inhibitory activities than 2, 6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenol (BHT) or ascorbic acid, and more powerful effect on protecting erythrocytes from oxidative damage than ascorbic acid. The *OH scavenging capacity was positively proportional to the concentrations of 1 and 2 ranging from 0.015 6 to 0.500 0 mg x mL(-1). The hepatic LPO inhibitory activities increased with the increasing concentrations of 1 and 2 from 0.001 9 to 0.250 0 mg x mL(-1), but decreased slightly with the increasing concentration from 0.250 0 to 1.0000 mg x L(-1).
Animals ; Antioxidants ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Bignoniaceae ; chemistry ; Free Radical Scavengers ; Glucosides ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Lipid Peroxidation ; drug effects ; Mice ; Molecular Structure ; Phenols ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Plant Roots ; chemistry ; Plants, Medicinal ; chemistry ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar