We compared the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profiles of desmopressin acetate after intraocular, intravenous and intragastric administration in rabbits to better understand the systemic delivery of peptide drugs through intraocular administration. Fifteen rabbits were randomly divided into three groups (intraocular administration, 7 μg·kg^-1; intravenous administration, 0.7 μg·kg^-1; and intragastric administration, 7 μg·kg^-1). Blood samples were taken from the heart at predetermined time points after dosing and the plasma desmopressin concentration was analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Another 21 rabbits were randomly divided into three groups (intraocular administration, 7 μg·kg^-1; intravenous administration, 0.7 μg·kg^-1; intragastric administration, 7 μg·kg^-1) for a pharmacodynamics study. Urine was collected at predetermined intervals after dosing. The pharmacokinetic parameters after intravenous administration were as follows:C_max was 143.0 pg·mL^-1; the area under the plasma concentration-time curve for desmopressin (AUC_0-t) was 999.9 pg·h·mL^-1. The pharmacokinetic parameters after intraocular administration were as follows:t_max was 5 min, C_max was 125.6 pg·mL^-1, AUC_0-t was 873.1 pg·h·mL^-1, and absolute bioavailability (F) was 8.7%. The pharmacokinetic parameters after intragastric administration were as follows:t_max was 10 min, C_max was 104.1 pg·mL^-1, AUC_0-t was 451.8 pg·h·mL^-1, and absolute bioavailability was 4.5%. Intraocular administration and intravenous administration of one tenth of the dosage showed a similar effect, and the urine volume remained decreased for 12 h, but urine volume increased significantly in the second collection period after intragastric administration, and there was no decrease in volume 12 h after dosing. This study demonstrates that peptide drugs such as desmopressin can be absorbed more rapidly after intraocular administration than after intragastric administration and can exert systemic therapeutic effects. In this study, the program of animal testing had been approved by the Laboratory Animal Care and Use Committee at Anhui University of Chinese Medicine.

The whole chloroplast genome of the medicinal plant Paeonia mairei H. Lév. was sequenced using the Illumina HiSeq X Ten platform and then assembled, annotated, and characterized by bioinformatic methods in this study. The complete chloroplast genome of P. mairei is 152 731 bp in length with the typical quadripartite structure, which consists of a large single copy-region (LSC, 84 402 bp), a small single copy-region (SSC, 16 969 bp), and a pair of inverted repeat regions (IRa and IRb, 25 680 bp), with an overall GC content of 38.4%. A total of 136 predicted genes, including 90 protein-coding genes, 38 tRNA genes and eight rRNA genes were identified. Among these, seven protein-coding genes, seven tRNA genes and four rRNA genes were found duplicated in the IR regions. In addition, 28 dispersed repeats, 10 tandem repeats, and 64 simple sequence repeats were detected within the whole chloroplast genome of P. mairei. Comparative analyses between 12 Peaonia species showed that the chloroplast genomes are highly conserved in length, gene content, gene order, and GC content. Meanwhile, the noncoding sequences (intergenic regions and introns) show a higher variation than the protein coding sequences, and sequences from the LSC region and SSC region are more variable than those from the IR regions. P. mairei was inferred forming in a distinct clade with P. lactiflora, P. obovate, and P. anomala subsp. veitchii with a 100% bootstrap value and is phylogenetically closest to P. lactiflora. These results may provide a basis for further genetic studies and the development and utilization of medicinal P. mairei.

A QuEChERS-ultra high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was developed for qualitative screening of 169 veterinary drug residues in bear bile powder, including β-agonists and inhibitors, antibiotics (penicillins, β-lactams, sulfomamides, quinolones, chloramphenicals, tetracyclines, nitroimidazoles, macrolides, polyethers, etc.), antiviral drugs, anthelminitics, steroid hormones, nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and sedatives. The samples were extracted by Na₂EDTA-McIlvaine buffer solution and 5% fomic acid-acetonitrile solution, then purified by dispersive solid phase extraction. Detection of veterinary drug residues by ultra high performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry was conducted and qualitative confirmed by ion ratios. The limits of detection of 169 veterinary drugs were 1-1 000 μg·kg^-1. The method is simple and fast, which had been used for the analysis of actual samples, and can be extended to the detection of similar matrix.

A pre-column derivatization and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF-MS/MS) method was developed for qualitative and quantitative determination of medium-and short-chain fatty acids in mice feces, and was further applied to evaluate variations in the feces of mice before and after antibiotic treatment. This animal experiment had been approved by Animal Experimental Ethics Committee of Jiangsu Province Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine. By optimizing the derivatization conditions and UHPLC-QTOF-MS/MS parameters a new UHPLC-QTOF-MS/MS method with 3-nitrophenylhydrazine as the derivatization reagent was developed for simultaneous determination of 16 medium-and short-chain fatty acids. Validation studies showed that the linearity of the calibration curves was good (R² > 0.99), the RSD of intra-day and inter-day precision was less than 10%, the repeatability RSD was less than 6%, the recovery rate was between 80%-120% at three spiked levels, and the stability RSD was less than 7% within 36 h. The types and amounts of the detected medium-and short-chain fatty acids in feces significantly changed after the mice were treated with antibiotics. The content of formic acid, acetic acid, propionic acid, butyric acid, isobutyric acid, valeric acid, and lactic acid decreased, whereas that of heptanoic acid and succinic acid increased significantly. All these results suggest that the newly established method is accurate and reliable, and can be used for determination of medium-and short-chain fatty acids in feces.

Plant polyphenols have a wide range of pharmacological activities and application prospects. Liquid polyphenol preparations have special physical phases and complex chemical compositions, with problems such as poor stability and easy precipitation during production and marketing. Taking the multi-precipitation mechanism of plant polyphenol liquid preparations as an example, we discuss the chemistry and composition of the precipitation, how it forms, whether precipitationcan be controlled, and the interaction law of three precipitation approaches. An unstable mechanism model is proposed where hydrolyzed tannin hydrolysis and catechin non-enzymatic oxidative polymerization repeatedly induces associative colloid aggregation and precipitation. This study explains the complex physicochemical changes in polyphenol solutions and the microcosmic mechanism of instability in the induced system and proposes a steady state reconstruction of liquid polyphenol preparation consistent with the common law of precipitation and control. It has scientific significance for promoting the development and manufacture of high quality liquid polyphenol preparations.

3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGR) is the first rate-limiting enzyme of terpenoid biosynthesis in the mevalonic acid pathway (MVA) pathway. It is an important regulatory site in terpenoids metabolism pathway in the cytoplasm. According to the transcriptome database of Cinnamomum camphora, two HMGRs named CcHMGR1 (GenBank:MN163055) and CcHMGR2 (GenBank:MN163056) were cloned by cDNA from C. camphora. The ORF of CcHMGR1 and CcHMGR2 is composed of 1 689 bp and 1 683 bp, respectively, encoding 562 and 560 amino acids. The bioinformatics analysis of CcHMGR1 and CcHMGR2 indicated that the molecular weight of the encoded protein is 59.819 kDa and 59.397 kDa, with a theoretically isoelectric point of 8.20 and 8.61, respectively. There are 2 transmembrane structures without signal peptide existing in the encoded amino acid of CcHMGRs. The analysis of sequence alignment and phylogenetic tree showed that the CcHMGRs belonged to the HMGR family. The camphor is divided into five chemitypes, according to the main chemical compounds in C. camphora. The results of the real time PCR indicated that the expression level of CcHMGRs in Cineol type was higher than that in Linalool type, iso-nerolidol type, Camphor type and Borneol type. CcHMGRs expressed highest in roots and lowest in branches. In this study, the cDNA full length of CcHMGRs were cloned from C. camphora for the first time. Our results revealed that the expression level of CcHMGRs were different among five chemical types and different plant tissues, and the research provides foundation for further study of the terpenoids biosynthetic pathway in C. camphora.

Two new trichilin-type limonoids were isolated from the fruits of Trichilia connaroides along with two known limonoids, 3α-deacetylamoorastatin (3) and mesendanins K (4). Their planar structure and relative configuration were elucidated by comprehensive analyses of HR-ESI-MS, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, HSQC, HMBC and ROESY data. An antitumor activity assay showed that compounds 1, 2 and known compound 4 had weak cytotoxicity against a human cervical cancer cell line (HeLa).

Cionbufagin has anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects. It is of great value in the treatment of bone cancer pain, but its mechanism is still unclear. To generate a bone metastasis model of breast cancer, 4×10⁵ Walker-256 cells were inoculated into the left hind limb of SD rats. The experimental protocol was approved by the Medical Laboratory Animal Ethics Committee of Medical College of China Three Gorges University. Rats were randomly divided into sham, model, cionbufagin, morphine, saline, minocycline, microglia inhibitor (RS102895) and co-treatment with cionbufagin and minocycline group. The cionbufagin (5 mL·kg^-1, i.p.), morphine (8 mg·kg^-1, i.p.) and co-treatment groups (included cionbufagin 5 mL·kg^-1, i.p.) received continuous administration from day 9 to day 21. The saline, minocycline (2.5 μg·μL^-1, 20 μL), RS102895 (1.5 μg·μL^-1, 20 μL) and co-treatment groups (included minocycline 2.5 μg·μL^-1, 20 μL) received continuous administration by intrathecal cannulation from day 12 to day 21. Bone destruction of the left hind limb of rats was detected by hematoxylin-eosin staining (H&E). The pain threshold before treatment and at day 2, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 17 and 20 was measured by behavioral indexes. Activation and expression of a microglia marker (Iba-1) was determined by immunofluorescence and Western blot. The level of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1 (IL-1), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in rat spinal cord was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). H&E results showed that cionbufagin effectively inhibited the destruction of bone marrow in rats with bone cancer pain; cionbufagin treatment significantly increased the mechanical and thermal pain threshold. Immunofluorescence showed that cionbufagin effectively inhibited the activation of microglia in the spinal dorsal horn. Western blot analysis confirmed that the activation of microglia in the spinal dorsal horn was inhibited by cionbufagin treatment. It was also found that the CCL2/CCR2 pathway may be involved in the analgesic effect of cionbufagin. These results suggest that cionbufagin can effectively alleviate bone cancer pain, possibly by inhibiting the release of inflammatory factors and the activation of spinal microglia cells through the CCL2/CCR2 pathway.

The coagulation Ⅷ factor (FⅧ) contains eight pairs of disulfide bonds, which are involved in maintaining its structure and function. It has been demonstrated that the disulfide bond between Cys¹⁸⁹⁹/Cys¹⁹⁰³ of the A3 domain in the light chain impedes secretion. In our previous work, an engineered inter-chain disulfide in the B domain-deleted FⅧ (BDD-FⅧ) promoted heterodimer assembly and secretion of separately expressed heavy and light chains. In this study, we constructed two BDD-FⅧ variants, one of which contains an engineered inter-chain disulfide bond (F8C) between Met⁶⁶² > Cys and Asp¹⁸²⁸ > Cys mutations and another contains an endogenous A3 domain with a disrupted disulfide bond from F8C (F8CG) by replacement of Cys¹⁸⁹⁹ and Cys¹⁹⁰³ with Gly in F8C. We explored their function and secretion. By transducing F8C and F8CG into HEK293 and COS-7 cells, the formation of disulfide bonds and the secretion and coagulation activity of the two variants in the culture media and their binding affinity for von Willebrand factor (vWF) could be observed. The results show that variants F8C and F8CG are mainly the disulfide bonded heavy and light chain dimer, while the wild type BDD-FⅧ (F8) is dominated by the easily dissociated heavy and light chain dimer. The secretion and activity of F8C was significantly higher than that of F8, while the secretion and activity of F8CG was significantly higher than that of F8C. The vWF binding of the two variants is similar to F8. This indicates that the BDD-FⅧ variant F8CG may be attractive molecule for protein replacement and as a transgene in gene-therapy strategies. These findings are encouraging for future studies targeting disulfide bond elimination for further enhancement of FⅧ secretion.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a genetic and environmental factor-associated metabolic disease that can lead to fibrosis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. In recent decades the prevalence of NAFLD has increased, but effective pharmacotherapy is limited. Treatment regimens in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) have made significant contributions to the control of NAFLD, but underlying mechanisms are far less elucidated. Increasing evidence suggests that gut microbiota play a crucial role in the pathogenesis and development of diseases including NAFLD. The outcomes of such research open a new approach in identifying the molecular mechanisms of TCM. Here we review the evidence that gut microbiota might be a target in the treatment NAFLD using TCM.