Carbon monoxide (CO) is an important chemical gas messenger molecule in the body with anti-inflammatory activity. As an active substance in gaseous state, the method for its safe and effective delivery towards the lesion sites remains to be established. Based on the natural affinity of carbon monoxide to hemoglobin, a main component of red blood cells (RBCs), this study proposes a carbon monoxide-red blood cell (CO-RBC) composite system, and tested its therapeutic effect against lung injury in an animal model. The mouse model of septic lung injury was adopted, and the carbon monoxide release molecule (CORM-2) was used as a positive control. CO-RBC system was characterized by CO release, stability, toxicity and in vivo lung targeting. The expression of intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM-1) and pulmonary surfactant protein-A (SP-A) were evaluated in the animal model and the therapeutic effect of CO-RBC system for sepsis was measured by inflammatory factors tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), as well as survival time of mice and pathological changes of the lung. Our results show that CO-RBC system exhibited satisfactory stability with negligible CO release during 48 h storage under nitrogen protection, while the CO release was about 70% within 12 h under physiological condition, in contrast to CO burst release from CORM-2. The CO-RBC system showed no significant toxicity in the animal model, and in vivo fluorescence imaging results showed effective accumulation in the lungs, supporting its lung targeting effects. The secretion of TNF-α and IL-6 in the CO-RBC group was significantly lower than that in other groups, the degree of pulmonary interstitial edema was relieved, the white blood cell infiltration was decreased, and the survival rate was significantly improved. Therefore, the CO-RBC system has a significant inhibitory effect on the pulmonary inflammatory response in septic mice compared with CORM-2. This system provides a new hope for therapeutic treatment of sepsis.

Pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) are a class of hepatotoxic compounds that are largely found in plants. "Zicao" is one of the most commonly-used Chinese herbal medicines from multiple sources, owing to its anti-inflammatory and wound healing effects. However, many studies have shown that this herb and its relative species contain hepatotoxic PAs. These PAs may cause hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome following metabolic activation, and are therefore considered as potential toxic substances. Even though the toxicity of "Zicao" in clinical use has not been reported, the existence of PAs will undoubtedly post a threat for its safety in long-term use. It has now become the focus of many researchers to disclose and prevent its potential risk of intoxication. This review summarizes recent progress and key scientific evidence found in the research of pyrrolizidine alkaloids from "Zicao" and its relative species, including their metabolic toxicity. We comment on the need of future studies, such as providing a reference or guidance for safety evaluation of this medicinal herb in clinical practice.

To investigate the influences of zwitterionic polymer chain length on mucus permeability and cellular uptake, the nanoparticles (NPs) were coated with poly(sulfobetaine methacrylate) (pSBMA) with different chain lengths. The di-block polymer poly(ε-caprolactone)-block-poly(sulfobetaine methacrylate) (PCL-pSBMA) with different chain lengths were synthesized via atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) combining with ring-opening polymerization of ε-caprolactone, and corresponding nanoparticles (pSBMAn NPs) were prepared by nanoprecipitation method. The sizes of different pSBMAn NPs were around 100 nm, and zeta potential were about -7 mV. Mucin interaction or mucus penetration study based on transwell systems were employed to evaluate mucus permeability of NPs. Caco-2 cells and mucus-producing HT-MTX-E12 cells were employed to illustrate the endocytosis efficiency of pSBMAn NPs. The results showed that the permeability coefficient of NPs coated with shorter chain length of pSBMA (pSBMA₁₀ NPs) was only 42.83% of that coated with longer pSBMA (pSBMA₈₀ NPs). On the contrary, the cellular uptake of pSBMA₁₀ NPs was 2.44 fold higher compared to pSBMA₈₀ NPs. Although the cellular uptake of pSBMAn NPs was reduced in the presence of mucus, pSBMA₁₀ NPs still presented the highest cellular uptake. However, the in vivo results indicated that the oral bioavailability of pSBMA₂₀ NPs was higher than that of pSBMA₁₀ NPs. All animal procedures were performed in accordance with the Guidelines of the Sichuan University Animal Care and Use Committee and were approved by the Animal Ethics Committee of Sichuan University. This study provides a reference for oral delivery of zwitterionic nanoparticles.

Disulfiram (DSF) is a traditional anti-alcohol drug, but it was recently found that DSF has strong inhibitory effect on the growth of a variety of cancer cells. However, its clinical application is greatly limited due to its poor solubility, instability in gastrointestinal tract and short plasma half-life. In this study, DSF is fabricated into nanosuspensions with the aim of trying to solve these problems. DSF nanosuspensions (DSF-NSps) were prepared by the anti-solvent precipitation method under ultrasonication, and the suitable stabilizer was screened according to the size, polydispersity index (PDI), and zeta potential of the resultant nanosuspensions, along with their particle size change during the storage at room temperature. The particle size, PDI, and zeta potential of DSF-NSps were determined using dynamic light scattering method, while the morphology of DSF-NSps was observed by transmission electronic microscope (TEM). The stability of DSF-NSps in media was examined according to their particle size change in different physiological media. The concentration of DSF was measured by HPLC assay. The in vitro drug release was evaluated on basis of dialysis. MTT assay was employed to evaluate the in vitro cytotoxicity of DSF-NSps against cancer cell lines. The 4T1 tumor-bearing mouse model was used to evaluate the in vivo therapeutic efficacy of DSF-NSps. All the animal experiments were acquired according to the Regulations for Animal Experiments and Guidelines for Ethical as defined by Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College. As a result, the combinational use of soyabean lecithin (SPC) and D-alpha tocopherol acid polyethyene glycol succinate (TPGS) was determined to best stabilize DSF-NSps when the ratio of DSF-SPC-TPGS was 24:20:4 (weight ratio), with small particle size and good storage stability. The resultant DSF-NSps showed a regular spherical morphology and drug loading content of (45.36 ±2.09)%, with average particle size of 175.00 ±0.75 nm, PDI of 0.24 ±0.07 and zeta potential of -14.3 mV. DSF-NSps displayed good particle size stability in a variety of biological media including phosphate buffer saline, normal saline, 5% glucose, artificial gastric fluid, artificial intestinal fluid and plasma, which would meet the demand of both intravenous and oral administration. The in vitro study demonstrated that nano-encapsulation greatly increased the stability of DSF in aqueous media, DSF-NSps exhibited sustained release of the encapsulated drug and significantly inhibited 4T1 cells compared to free DSF (IC₅₀, 1.07 vs 5.53 μg·mL^-1, P < 0.01). DSF-NSps showed a good dose-response relationship on the 4T1 tumor-bearing mice with the tumor inhibition rates at the three doses being 80.22%, 75.14% and 66.10%, all higher than that of paclitaxel injections (55.01%, P < 0.05). The in vivo biodistribution study displayed that DSF-NSps were mainly distributed into liver, spleen and tumor. In sum, disulfiram nanoparticles could be expected to provide an effective anti-cancer drug for the treatment of breast cancer.

This study aimed to evaluate the predictive performance of a vancomycin population pharmacokinetic model in 0-10 year Chinese pediatric patients. This study was approved by the Ethics Research Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, data from hospitalized children ≤ 10 years of age who receiving vancomycin were collected retrospectively. Individual predictive values (IPRED) were estimated by Bayesian Analysis based on a previous published population pharmacokinetic model, and compared with the observed steady state trough concentration. As results, a total of 371 vancomycin serum concentrations from 191 patients were taken for the external validation. The mean error (ME), the mean relative prediction error (ME%), the mean absolute error (MAE) and the root mean square error (RMSE) in individual prediction method for the total patients were -0.50 mg·L^-1, 6.03%, 1.84 mg·L^-1, 2.86 mg·L^-1 respectively. The correlation coefficient between individual predictions and detection values was 0.95. The stability and the predictive performance of model were accepted by goodness-of-fit, visual predictive check (VPC) and Bland-Altman. The percentage of individual prediction error within ±30% was 82.75%. The above results suggest that, this Chinese pediatric population pharmacokinetic model in 0-10 years old has a good prediction performance. It can be applied to the design of initial treatment plan and predicting the extent of drug exposure.

This study aimed to evaluate the antioxidant activities of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi flowers by measuring the scavenging activity of hydroxyl radical and superoxide anion radical. Aging of rats was induced by D-galactose and protective effects of Scutellaria flower extract (SFE) at different doses were evaluated by locomotor activities. To explore the mechanism of SFE, metabolomic technique combined with multivariate statistical methods was used to analyze the profile of metabolites from rat serum and quantify the levels of glutamine and glutamate in the serum. All research procedures were approved according to the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of Shanxi University. The results showed that high-dose of SFE had antioxidant activity in vitro, and could ameliorate the aging behavior of rats. A total of 9 potential biomarkers related to aging were found, pointing to the involvement of 7 metabolic pathways.

Based on coumarin core structure as the procaspase-3 activator 1541 from our previous study, twelve coumarin derivatives bearing benzothiazole or benzene moiety were designed and synthesized. Target compounds were evaluated for in vitro antitumor activity against a procaspase-3 overexpressing cancer cell line (human histiocytic lymphoma cell, U937) and a procaspase-3 no-expression cancer cell line (human breast adenocarcinoma cell, MCF-7) to rule out off-target effects. The results revealed that coumarin derivatives bearing benzothiazole showed more potent inhibition activity and selectivity against procaspase-3 over-expressing cancer cell line (U937) than procaspase-3 low-sensitive cancer cell line (MCF-7). Caspase-3 activity evaluation showed that coumarin derivatives bearing benzothiazole showed remarkable caspase-3 activation activity, among them, compound 5f displayed the strongest activity with 93% degree. Flow cytometric assay revealed that compound 5f could inhibit proliferation of tumor cells by inducing apoptosis. Procaspase-3 activity assay showed that compound 5f showed strong procaspase-3 activation activity.

Recently, hepatic sinusoidal obstruction syndrome (HSOS) caused by Gynura Rhizoma (Tusanqi) has gained global attention. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects and mechanisms of Danning tablet, a traditional Chinese formula, on protecting against HSOS induced by Gynura Rhizoma. All experiments were approved by the Animal Research Committee of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Animal welfare and the animal experimental protocols were strictly consistent with related ethics regulations of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. HSOS was induced by intragastrical administration of Gynura Rhizoma extract (1 g·kg^-1·d^-1) for 40 consencutive days. On the other hand, mice in the protection group were intragastrical administration of Danning tablet powder (3 g·kg^-1·d^-1) 4 hours before treatment of Gynura Rhizoma extract. The results showed that Danning tablet could significantly attenuate the liver injury in HSOS mice. Mice in the protection group showed decreased serum activity of spartate amino transferase, and levels of total bile acids and total bilirubin. In addition, the endothelial damage to the central venules, subendothelial hemorrhage, sinusoidal hemorrhage, and subendothelial fibrosis in HSOS mice were clearly attenuated in the protection group. Measurements of the key factors involved in liver fibrosis revealed that protection group showed significantly reduction in hepatic hydroxyproline concentration, mRNA expression of α-smooth muscle actin and fibrosis-related genes such as Collagen-1, Collagen-3, Mmp2 and Mmp9, as well as Smad3 phosphorylation (p-Smad) and serum transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β). Moreover, pro-inflammatory cytokines, including tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-1β, were also reversed in the protection group. All these results demonstrate the key roles of the TGF-β/p-Smad3 and inflammatory signaling pathways in the protection effect of Danning tablet on Gynura Rhizoma-induced HSOS, and pointing to the possibility of utilizing Danning tablet for protection against Gynura Rhizoma induced HSOS clinically.

The purpose of this study was to select the active compounds targeting Hsp90 protein in pancreatic cancer cells through a new dual "target + activity" rapid discovery technique. We combined an in vitro anti-cancer activity screening method with a dual-luciferase reporter gene and multi-chromatography separation technology, for rapid discovery of potential Hsp90 inhibitors from the Chinese herbal medicine Physalis angulata L. The anti-proliferation activity of those compounds was assessed in pancreatic cancer cell line BxPC-3 by MTT assays. The molecular mechanisms of Hsp90 inhibition were explored by Western blot and shRNA knockdown assays. As a result, two withanolides, withanolide E (WE) and 4β-hydroxywithanolide E (HWE), were identified from Physalis angulata L. The half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) of WE and HWE were 0.71±0.03 and 1.23±0.10 μmol·L^-1 for the growth of BxPC-3 cells in 48 h. Luciferase reporter assay demonstrated that WE and HWE significantly induced heat shock element (HSE) activity in a dose-and time-dependent manner. The molecular mechanism study showed that after exposing to 5 μmol·L^-1 WE or HWE for 48 h, the aggregation of Hsp90 dimer was upregulated to 6.5±1.3 and 11.8±2.0 fold, while the expression of Hsp90 client protein Akt was downregulated to 21.7%±2.8% and 9.8%±1.4% of the control group. Moreover, the Hsp90 inhibitory activity of WE or HWE was canceled by shRNA mediated Hsp90 knockdown. Overall, based on the dual "target + active" rapid discovery technique, two new Hsp90 inhibitors WE and HWE were found from Physalis angulata L. The Hsp90 inhibitory mechanism of WE and HWE may be mediated by induction of Hsp90 aggregate dimer and inhibition of Hsp90 client protein Akt expression.

IMB5046 is a newly discovered nitrobenzoate functioning as a microtubule inhibitor. Here we report its synthesis and in vitro anti-angiogenic activity. IMB5046 was synthesized by conjugation of 2-morpholin-4-yl-5-nitrobenzoic acid with 4-(methylthio)benzyl alcohol via two-step reactions. The structure of the end product was verified using ¹H NMR and HR-MS spectroscopy. The effect of these compounds on cell proliferation was determined using MTT assay, and their impact on cytoskeleton was investigated using fluorescence assay. Flow cytometry was performed to examine the effect of IMB5046 on cell cycle. Cell wound scratch assay and Transwell assay were performed to examine cell migration. Endothelial tube formation assay was used to evaluate the anti-angiogenic activity of IMB5046. The results indicated that IMB5046 induced endothelial cell contraction and microtubule depolymerization, and inhibited the proliferation of endothelial cells and tumor cells, while two raw materials showed no obvious effects. IMB5046 arrested cell cycle at G₂/M phase, even at low-cytotoxic concentrations it significantly inhibited the motility of endothelial cells. IMB5046 inhibited the tube formation of endothelial cells according to the number of tubes and junctions. In conclusion, IMB5046 is a promising microtubule-targeting drug with anti-angiogenic activity.