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Malaria, one of the major global public health events, is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity among children and adults in tropical and subtropical regions(mainly in sub-Saharan Africa), threatening human health. It is well known that malaria can cause various complications including anemia, blackwater fever, cerebral malaria, and kidney damage. Conventionally, cardiac involvement has not been listed as a common reason affecting morbidity and mortality of malaria, which may be related to ignored cases or insufficient diagnosis. However, the serious clinical consequences such as acute coronary syndrome, heart failure, and malignant arrhythmia caused by malaria have aroused great concern. At present, antimalarials are commonly used for treating malaria in clinical practice. However, inappropriate medication can increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases and cause severe consequences. This review summarized the research advances in the cardiovascular complications including acute myocardial infarction, arrhythmia, hypertension, heart failure, and myocarditis in malaria. The possible mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases caused by malaria were systematically expounded from the hypotheses of cell adhesion, inflammation and cytokines, myocardial apoptosis induced by plasmodium toxin, cardiac injury secondary to acute renal failure, and thrombosis. Furthermore, the effects of quinolines, nucleoprotein synthesis inhibitors, and artemisinin and its derivatives on cardiac structure and function were summarized. Compared with the cardiac toxicity of quinolines in antimalarial therapy, the adverse effects of artemisinin-derived drugs on heart have not been reported in clinical studies. More importantly, the artemisinin-derived drugs demonstrate favorable application prospects in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, and are expected to play a role in the treatment of malaria patients with cardiovascular diseases. This review provides reference for the prevention and treatment of malaria-related cardiovascular complications as well as the safe application of antimalarials.

As a classic prescription, Wuji Pills is composed of Coptidis Rhizoma, Euodiae Fructus Preparata, and stir-fried Paeo-niae Radix Alba at the ratio of 6∶1∶6. The practical application of it is limited compared with other famous Chinese medicine prescriptions. Only one company produces Wuji Pills in China. In this study, ultra-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry(UPLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS) was used to analyze and identify 26 identical compounds from Wuji Pills and drug-containing plasma of rats. Based on these components, 46 potential targets were screened out with network pharmacology methods, followed by the component-target network construction, Gene Ontology(GO) term enrichment, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG) pathway enrichment, and disease prediction. It was concluded that Wuji Pills acted on core targets such as PTGS2, PTSG1, NCOA2, HSP9 OAD1, and RXRA through magnoflorine, hydroxyevodiamine, daucosterol, and berberine and exerted pharmacodynamic effects through various pathways such as calcium ion signaling pathway, phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase-protein kinase B(PI3 K-Akt) signaling pathway, and vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF) signaling pathway. Thus, Wuji Pills has therapeutic potential for Alzheimer's disease, diabetes mellitus, myocardial ischemia, and other diseases in addition to the conventional disease(irritable bowel syndrome, IBS). The above research results can provide a reference for the comprehensive interpretation of the pharmacodynamic basis of Wuji Pills and the expansion of clinical application. At the same time, a lot of components in serum and the in vivo transformed and metabolized components of Wuji Pills have similar structure and relative molecular weight. In theory, these components may show additive effects and the competitive/antagonistic effects on the same target. According to the hypothesis of "additive effect of multiple components for a single target" in traditional Chinese medicine, multiple similar components may exert the additive effects on local targets. This study can partly prove the scientificity of this hypothesis and provide laboratory evidence.

Corona virus disease 2019(COVID-19) has brought untold human sufferings and economic tragedy worldwide. It causes acute myocardial injury and chronic damage of cardiovascular system, which has attracted much attention from researchers. For the immediate strategy for COVID-19, "drug repurposing" is a new opportunity for developing drugs to fight COVID-19. Artemisinin and its derivatives have a wide range of pharmacological activities. Recent studies have shown that artemisinin has clear cardiovascular protective effects. This paper summarizes the research progress on the pathogenesis the pathogenesis of COVID-19 in cardiovascular damage by 2019 novel coronavirus(2019-nCoV) virus from myocardial cell injury directly by 2019-nCoV virus,viral ligands competitively bind to ACE2 and then reduce the protective effect of ACE2 on cardiovascular disease, "cytokine storm" related myocardial damage, arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death induced by the infection and stress, myocardial injury by hypoxemia, heart damage side effects from COVID-19 drugs and summarizing the cardiovascular protective effects of artemisinin and its derivatives have activities of anti-arrhythmia, anti-myocardial ischemia, anti-atherosclerosis and plaque stabilization. Then analyzed the possible multi-pathway intervention effects of artemisinin-based drugs on multiple complications of COVID-19 based on its specific immunomodulatory effects, protective effects of tissue and organ damage and broad-spectrum antiviral effect, to provide clues for the treatment of cardiovascular complications of COVID-19, and give a new basis for the therapy of COVID-19 through "drug repurposing".

Plasmodium culture in vitro is often used as an antimalarial drug evaluation model, but the lifecycle of P. falciparum culture in vitro tends to be disordered, which affects the research and evaluation of antimalarial drug mechanism in vitro. By combining magnetic bead separation method with sorbitol synchronization method, a synchronization method was constructed to quickly acquire different lifecycles of P. falciparum and obtain large amounts of parasite with a narrow synchronization window in a short period. Furthermore, the dihydroartemisinin(DHA) was used to treat the early trophozoite phase of P. falciparum 3 D7 for 4 h. Then mRNA was extracted and RNA-seq was conducted to analyze the differential expression of mRNA after drug treatment and obtain the differential gene expression profile. Differential expression of up-regulated genes and down-regulated genes was analyzed according to the screening criteria of |log_2FC|>1 and P<0.05. There, 262 genes were up-regulated and 77 genes were down-regulated. GO functional enrichment analysis of all the differentially expressed genes showed that the enrichment items mainly included cell membrane components, transporter activity, serine/threonine kinase activity, Maurer's clefts(MCs), rhoptry, antigen variation and immune evasion. The enrichment of KEGG pathway included malaria, fatty acid metabolism and peroxisome. Protein-protein interaction(PPI) analysis showed that the down-regulated genes in the modules with high degree of association included rhoptry, myosin complex, transporter and other genes related to the important life activities of malaria invasion and immune escape; the up-regulated genes were mainly related to various toxic exportins of malaria, such as PfSBP1 of MCs. qRT-PCR was used to verify the expression level of some genes, and most of the results were the same as the sequencing results. SBP1 was significantly up-regulated, while some antigenic protein expression levels were down-regulated. Above all, key molecules of DHA therapy were mainly involved in the parasites' rhoptry, transporter, antigenic variation, plasmodium exportin. These results offer us many hints to guide the further studies on mechanism of artemisinin and provide a new way for development of new antimalarial drugs.

In view of the fact that the antimalarial effects of artemisinins are significant but the mechanism has not yet been clarified and there are many different opinions, it is possible that artemisinins can produce high anti-malarial efficacy through various mechanisms and multiple pathways. In addition, the researches on the pathogenesis of malaria "erythrocyte membrane plasmodial surface anion channel (PSAC)" in the past few years have provided more positive findings, which may confirm and discover the new antimalarial mechanism of artemisinins. This paper was as to study the effect of dihydroartemisinin (DHA) in vitro on erythrocyte membrane permeability of HB3 plasmodium infection, with using the mechanism of 5% sorbitol can be used to kill the Plasmodium falciparum in red blood cell membrane selectively, the effectual difference of sorbitol on the killing of P. falciparum with adding DHA or not was detected, so as to investigate whether DHA can affect the permeability of the erythrocyte membrane. Result showed that, Pre-stimulation with 10 nmol·L⁻¹ DHA (the final concentration of plasmodium in vitro culture system) for 30 min could significantly decrease the killing effect of sorbitol on the HB3 plasmodium in the P. falciparum erythrocytic cycle, and DHA may inhibit the permeability of the erythrocyte membrane for preventing sorbitol through the red blood cell membrane, thereby reducing the killing effect of sorbitol on the P. falciparum., Competing Interests: The authors of this article and the planning committee members and staff have no relevant financial relationships with commercial interests to disclose., (Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.)

Malaria is still the most severe strain of the human malaria parasites, and malaria disease is life-threatening which can result in severe anemia and cerebral malaria, especially in children in tropical Africa. Previous studies have shown that artemisinin and its derivatives could selectively kill erythrocytic stage of malaria and have a greater impact on the ring period. In recent years, there have been new findings of its mechanism continually. However, the concentration of artemisinin and its derivatives used in these studies can reach 50 to 80 times the half-inhibitory concentration in vitro. In this study, the international standard strain 3D7 of Plasmodium falciparum was used to culture in vitro. After half-inhibitory concentration of dihydroartemisinin was treated, the morphological changes of P. falciparum intraerythrocytic stage were observed, and then the 3D7 life cycle and effects of different developmental stages after dosing was explored. The 3D7 strain of P. falciparum was continuously synchronised more than 3 times. And dihydroartemisinin (DHA) at half maximal inhibitory concentration (10 nmol·L⁻¹) was administered for 6 hours after the last synchronization, and 3 life cycles were continuously observed (132 h). The results showed that compared with the parasites untreated by DHA, there was a noticeable delay in the life cycle of at least 36 h, indicating that the growth of 3D7 was significantly inhibited by DHA ( P <0.001), and the rate of ring formation was significantly reduced ( P <0.05). The trophozoites were abnormal in shape, such as shrink in size, and the number of merozoites in schizonts was significantly decreased ( P <0.05). These results suggested that non-killing concentrations of DHA (meaning parasites can be inhibited but not killed) can significantly inhibit the growth of P. falciparum, which may not only affect the ring stage, but also have an impact on other stages of the P. falciparum., Competing Interests: The authors of this article and the planning committee members and staff have no relevant financial relationships with commercial interests to disclose., (Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.)

Cerebral malaria (CM) is the leading cause of death in children under 5 years in Africa, severe neurological sequelae may occur in surviving children. Although artesunate has made breakthrough progress in the clinical treatment of CM, the clinical problems of high mortality and high morbidity have not yet been completely resolved. In this study, an experimental cerebral malaria (ECM) model was established by infecting C57BL/6 mice with Pb ANKA (Plasmodium berghei ANKA) to compare parasitemia level, survival rates, and rapid murine coma behavior scale scores, cerebral microvascular obstruction, haemozoin deposition in the liver, body temperature and weight to investigate the anti-cerebral malaria effect of the artesunate compound combination. The results showed that the artesunate compound combination could improve the survival rate of Pb ANKA-infected mice, reduce the level of parasitemia, effectively improve the symptoms of ECM neurological injury, reduce cerebrovascular obstruction and haemozoin deposition in the liver, and also significantly improve body temperature, weight and other basic indicators. The results showed that the artesunate compound combination improved the pathological changes and neurological damage caused by CM. It is expected to provide a theoretical basis for human cerebral malaria patients in clinical adjuvant therapy., Competing Interests: The authors of this article and the planning committee members and staff have no relevant financial relationships with commercial interests to disclose., (Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.)

Magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers(MMIPs) were prepared with ZL006 as template, acrylamide(AA) as the functional monomer, and acetonitrile as pore-forming agent; then Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FT-IR) and scanning electron microscopy(SEM) were used to characterize their forms and structures. Simultaneously, the MMIPs prepared previously were used as sorbents for dispersive magnetic solid phase extraction(DSPE) to capture and identify potential nNOS-PSD-95 uncouplers from extracts of Trifolium pratense and the the activities of the screened compounds were evaluated by the neuroprotective effect and co-immunoprecipitation test. The experiment revealed that the successfully synthesized MMIPs showed good dispersiveness, suitable particle size and good adsorption properties. Formononetin, prunetin and biochanin A were separated and enriched from Trifolium pratense by using the MMIPs as artificial antibodies and finally biochanin A was found to have higher cytoprotective action and uncoupling action according to the neuroprotective effect and co-immunoprecipitation test., Competing Interests: The authors of this article and the planning committee members and staff have no relevant financial relationships with commercial interests to disclose., (Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.)

Cerebral malaria (CM), a severe neurological syndrome caused by Plasmodium falciparum infection, is a serious life-threatening disease with a high mortality. Survivors' persistent brain injury is manifested as long-term neurocognitive disorders. The main neuropathological feature of CM is the sequestration of parasited red blood cells (pRBCs) in cerebral microvessels. Other neuropathological features of CM include petechial hemorrhage in the brain parenchyma, annular hemorrhage, extensive brain endothelial cell activation, and focal endothelial cell injury and necrosis. However, its pathogenesis is still not clear. Currently, some studies have suggested that the pathogenesis of cerebral malaria mainly include pRBC adhesion, inflammatory reaction cascade, vascular leakage damage and brain hypoxia. Studies have shown that the biomarkers currently used as diagnostic and prognostic markers for CM include C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 10 (CXCL10), CXC chemokine ligand 4 (CXCL4), angiopoietin (Ang). In this paper, we systematically summarize the basic and clinical research for cerebral malaria in recent years and the latest literatures for drug studies, and focused on the advance of studies on cerebral malaria and its immunologic mechanism in the recent three years in the aspects of cytokines, immune cells, regulatory factors and biomarkers, so as to provide references for relevant studies., Competing Interests: The authors of this article and the planning committee members and staff have no relevant financial relationships with commercial interests to disclose., (Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.)

Taking mesoporous molecular sieve MCM-41 as a substrate, baicalin (BA) as template, acrylamide (AM) as the functional monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as a cross-linking agent, ethanol as solvent, under thermal polymerization initiator of azobis isobutyronitrilo (AIBN) , a kind of selective recognition of baicalin surface molecularly imprinted polymer was synthesized. The surface morphologies and characteristics of the MIPs were characterized by infrared spectroscopy (IR) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The adsorption properties of polymer microsphere for the template were tested by the dynamic adsorption equilibrium experiments and static adsorption equilibrium experiments. The experiment showed that the imprinting process was successfully and the well-ordered one-dimensional pore structure of MCM-41 was still preserved. Furthermore, molecularly imprinted polymers had higher selective ability for BA, then provided a new method for the efficient separation and enrichment of baicalin active ingredients from medicinal plants Scutellaria baicalensis.

The article reviewed the research on the pharmacological effects of Danshen on hemorheology. We discussed the action mechanism of Danshen and its preparations from the points of hemorheology, blood and vessel endothelium cell. Danshen and its preparations can obviously improve the hemorheological characteristic by various ways.