Astragali Radix (AR), a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), has demonstrated therapeutic efficacy against various diseases, including cardiovascular conditions, over centuries of use. While doxorubicin serves as an effective chemotherapeutic agent against multiple cancers, its clinical application remains constrained by significant cardiotoxicity. Research has indicated that AR exhibits protective properties against doxorubicin-induced cardiomyopathy (DIC); however, the specific bioactive components and underlying mechanisms responsible for this therapeutic effect remain incompletely understood. This investigation seeks to identify the protective bioactive components in AR against DIC and elucidate their mechanisms of action. Through network medicine analysis, astragaloside IV (AsIV) and formononetin (FMT) were identified as potential cardioprotective agents from 129 AR components. In vitro experiments using H9c2 rat cardiomyocytes revealed that the AsIV-FMT combination (AFC) effectively reduced doxorubicin-induced cell death in a dose-dependent manner, with optimal efficacy at a 1∶2 ratio. In vivo, AFC enhanced survival rates and improved cardiac function in both acute and chronic DIC mouse models. Additionally, AFC demonstrated cardiac protection while maintaining doxorubicin's anti-cancer efficacy in a breast cancer mouse model. Lipidomic and metabolomics analyses revealed that AFC normalized doxorubicin-induced lipid profile alterations, particularly by reducing fatty acid accumulation. Gene knockdown studies and inhibitor experiments in H9c2 cells demonstrated that AsIV and FMT upregulated peroxisome proliferator activated receptor γ coactivator 1α (PGC-1α) and PPARα, respectively, two key proteins involved in fatty acid metabolism. This research establishes AFC as a promising therapeutic approach for DIC, highlighting the significance of multi-target therapies derived from natural herbals in contemporary medicine.
Animals ; Doxorubicin/adverse effects* ; Saponins/administration & dosage* ; Isoflavones/pharmacology* ; Rats ; Cardiomyopathies/prevention & control* ; Mice ; Fatty Acids/metabolism* ; Myocytes, Cardiac/metabolism* ; Triterpenes/administration & dosage* ; Male ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal/administration & dosage* ; Humans ; Cardiotonic Agents/administration & dosage* ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Cell Line ; Astragalus Plant/chemistry* ; Astragalus propinquus

Liver cholesterol metabolism disorder plays an important role in the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).In order to reveal the molecular mechanism of cholesterol homeostasis imbalance induced by saturated fatty acids, HepG2 cells were stimulated with palmitic acid (PA).Lipids accumulation was analyzed by Oil Red O staining, intracellular triglyceride and cholesterol quantification.The level of genes and proteins related to cholesterol homeostasis was measured by RT-qPCR and western blotting.Additionally, intracellular bile acids and mitochondrial oxysterols were detected by LC-MS/MS.The results demonstrated that intracellular lipids such as TG and TC were significantly increased in the model with PA stimulation.Although no significant difference was detected in genes related to cholesterol synthesis and uptake, the protein expression of ABCG5 and LXRα were significantly down-regulated, indicating a decrease in cholesterol efflux.Meanwhile, the gene expression of STARD1 and CYP7B1, which are responsible for bile acid alternative synthesis, were markedly enhanced, along with a significant increase of cholesterol and 27-OHC in mitochondria and CDCA in cells.These results suggested that PA overload may disrupt cholesterol homeostasis by inhibiting cholesterol efflux and promoting bile acids synthesis.

Fatty acid metabolism, including fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and fatty acid synthesis, plays critical roles in signal transduction, energy production and inflammation regulation.Acute kidney injury (AKI), chronic kidney disease (CKD) and renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are typical renal diseases with complex pathogenesis, susceptibility to multiple complications, and still no effective measure for clinical intervention.Current studies reveal that fatty acid metabolism is closely related to the occurrence and development of a variety of kidney diseases.This article reviews the metabolic characteristics of fatty acid in the kidney, the relationship between fatty acid metabolism disorder and renal diseases (i.e., AKI, CKD and RCC), and summarizes traditional Chinese medicines and related active ingredients targeting fatty acid metabolic pathway to alleviate renal diseases, aiming to provide theoretical reference for the in-depth study of mechanisms related to fatty acid metabolism in renal diseases as well as the development of effective interventions.

Objective:To investigate the predictive value of MRI radiologic extranodal extension (rENE) for distant metastasis of prostate cancer (PCa).Methods:The data of 107 patients of initial visit with clinically diagnosed N1 PCa who underwent MRI and 68Ga-prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET/CT examinations were retrospectively analyzed at Xijing Hospital, Air Force Medical University from January 2017 to April 2022. The rENE was evaluated with MRI. According to the results of 68Ga-PSMA PET/CT, the patients were divided into the distant metastasis group (group M1, 87 cases) and the non-distant metastasis group (group M0, 20 cases). Independent sample t test, Mann-Whitney U test or χ 2 test were used to compare the differences in clinical indicators and rENE between the two groups. The multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to screen the independent risk factors affecting distant metastasis. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the predictive efficacy of independent risk factors for PCa distant metastasis. Results:In group M1, 72 cases (82.8%) were rENE positive and 15 cases (17.2%) were rENE negative, and in group M0, 7 cases (35.0%) were rENE positive and 13 cases (65.0%) were rENE negative, and there was a statistically significant difference in rENE between the two groups (χ 2=19.20, P<0.001). There were significant differences in total prostate specific antigen level, International Society of Urological Pathology grade and T stage between the group M1 and the group M0 ( P<0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that rENE (OR=6.248, 95%CI 1.807-21.600, P=0.004) was an independent risk factor for distant metastasis of PCa, and the area under the ROC curve of rENE in the diagnosis of distant metastasis of PCa was 0.739 (95%CI 0.607-0.871), the sensitivity was 82.8%, and the specificity was 65.0%. Conclusion:rENE is an independent predictor of distant metastasis of PCa, which has a high efficacy. Compared with patients with rENE negative, PCa patients with rENE positive have a higher degree of invasion and are more likely to have distant metastasis.

In order to reveal the intestinal absorption mechanism of saikosaponin d (SSd) in vitro and in vivo, the current research investigated the effects of different experimental conditions (time, concentration, temperature, pH, intestinal segments), transporter inhibitors, paracellular pathway enhancer, metabolic enzyme inhibitors on the intestinal absorption of SSd, in Caco-2 monolayers and a single pass perfusion model in rats.The results showed that the apparent permeability coefficient (Papp) and effective permeability coefficient (Peff) of SSd were 4.75 × 10-7 - 6.38 × 10-7 cm/s and 0.19 × 10-4- 0.27 × 10-4 cm/s, respectively, indicating that it was a low permeability compound, and that the transmembrane transport of SSd was concentration-dependent (0.5-5 μmol/L) and time-dependent (0-180 min).Ileum was the main absorption site for SSd. Experimental results based on Caco-2 monolayers showed that the P-gp inhibitor and paracellular permeability enhancer significantly increased the absorption of SSd (P < 0.05), which was consistent with the results obtained in rats. Inhibitors of OATPs and OCTs showed different results in vitro and in vivo, which may be related to the lower expression of them in jejunum.In summary, the intestinal absorption of SSd occurs through a carrier-mediated and energy-dependent transport, as well as passive diffusion, and P-glycoprotein plays an important role in the active transport of SSd.

Intestinal toxicity induced by chemotherapeutics has become an important reason for the interruption of therapy and withdrawal of approved agents. In this study, we demonstrated that chemotherapeutics-induced intestinal damage were commonly characterized by the sharp upregulation of tryptophan (Trp)-kynurenine (KYN)-kynurenic acid (KA) axis metabolism. Mechanistically, chemotherapy-induced intestinal damage triggered the formation of an interleukin-6 (IL-6)-indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1)-aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) positive feedback loop, which accelerated kynurenine pathway metabolism in gut. Besides, AHR and G protein-coupled receptor 35 (GPR35) negative feedback regulates intestinal damage and inflammation to maintain intestinal integrity and homeostasis through gradually sensing kynurenic acid level in gut and macrophage, respectively. Moreover, based on virtual screening and biological verification, vardenafil and linagliptin as GPR35 and AHR agonists respectively were discovered from 2388 approved drugs. Importantly, the results that vardenafil and linagliptin significantly alleviated chemotherapy-induced intestinal toxicity

To investigate the regulatory effects of insulin and oleic acid on serum metabolites in colon cancer, subcutaneous transplantation tumor model of colon carcinoma cell HCT116 was established. Nude mice were randomly divided into 4 groups: control (CON, vehicle); insulin treatment (INS, sc, 2.5 U/kg); oleic acid treatment (OA, ig, 2.0 g/kg); and insulin (sc, 2.5 U/kg) plus oleic acid (ig, 2.0 g/kg) treatment (IO). Non-target metabolomic analysis on the blood samples was performed by GC/MS and LC-IT-TOF/MS. Data pre-processing, including peaking, spectral deconvolution and peak alignment, was performed before data were imported to SIMCA-P for multivariate statistical analysis. Results showed that body weight of individuals in IO group was the lowest, but the tumor weight was the heaviest. Metabolic profiles of IO group were also different compared with the CON group, and the contributing metabolites were urea, arabinose, cholesterol, L-acetylcarnitine and sphingosine. There was no significant difference between OA or INS and CON. This study showed that the combination of insulin and oleic acid promoted colon cancer deterioration and caused metabolic disturbance in blood.Our study may provide theoretical foundation for the discovery of colon cancer biomarker and its early diagnosis.

Saikosaponins (SSs) are the main active components extracted from Bupleuri Radix (BR) which has been used as an important herbal drug in Asian countries for thousands of years.It has been reported that the intestinal bacteria plays an important role in the in vivo disposal of oral SSs.Although the deglycosylated derivatives (saikogenins,SGs) of SSs metabolized by the intestinal bacteria are speculated to be the main components absorbed into the blood after oral administration of SSs,no studies have been reported on the characteristics of SGs for their intestinal absorption,and those for SSs are also limited.Therefore,a rapid UHPLC-MS/MS method was developed to investigate and compare the apparent permeability of three common SSs (SSa,SSd,SSb2) and their corresponding SGs (SGF,SGG,SGD) through a bidirectional transport experiment on Caco-2 cell monolayer model.The method was validated according to the latest FDA guidelines and applied to quantify the six analytes in transport medium samples extracted via liquid-liquid extraction (LLE).The apparent permeability coefficient (Papp) determined in this study indicated that the permeability of SGs improved to the moderate class compared to the corresponding parent compounds,predicting a higher in vivo absorption.Moreover,the efflux ratio (ER) value demonstrated an active uptake of SSd and the three SGs,while a passive diffusion of SSa and SSb2.

Astragali radix(AR,the dried root of Astragalus)is a popular herbal remedy in both China and the United States.The commercially available AR is commonly classified into premium graded(PG)and ungraded(UG)ones only according to the appearance.To uncover novel sensitive and specific markers for AR grading,we took the integrated mass spectrometry-based untargeted and targeted metabolomics ap-proaches to characterize chemical features of PG and UG samples in a discovery set(n=16 batches).A series of five differential compounds were screened out by univariate statistical analysis,including arginine,calycosin,ononin,formononetin,and astragaloside Ⅳ,most of which were observed to be accumulated in PG samples except for astragaloside Ⅳ.Then,we performed machine learning on the quantification data of five compounds and constructed a logistic regression prediction model.Finally,the external validation in an independent validation set of AR(n=20 batches)verified that the five com-pounds,as well as the model,had strong capability to distinguish the two grades of AR,with the pre-diction accuracy＞90％.Our findings present a panel of meaningful candidate markers that would significantly catalyze the innovation in AR grading.

Nafamostat mesylate is a serine protease inhibitor used in the treatment of acute pancreatitis. The im-purities in nafamostat mesylate, the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), were profiled via high performance liquid chromatography tandem ion trap coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometer (HPLC-IT-TOF/MS). The chromatography was performed on an ACE-3 C18 column (200 mm × 4.6 mm, 3μm) using methanol and 0.1％ formic acid in purified water as mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The ions were detected by IT-TOF/MS with a full-scan mass analysis from m/z 100 to 800. In total, eleven impurities were detected in nafamostat mesylate API. The impurity profile was estimated based on the HPLC-IT-TOF/MS data, including accurate masses, MSn fingerprints of fragmentation pathways and a series of double-charged ions. Finally, seven impurities were identified and reported for the first time. The results will provide technical support for the quality control and clinical safety of nafamostat mesylate.