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Gentiana radix is used in traditional Chinese medicine and has functions of clearing heat and drying dampness, as well as purging liver and gallbladder fire. A highly sensitive and effective strategy for rapid screening and identification of target constituents has been developed by using ultra high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with linear ion trap-Orbitrap mass spectrometry (UHPLC-LTQ-Orbitrap) in crude and wine-processed . Based on the accurate mass measurement (&lt, 5 ppm), retention times, and MS fragmentation ions, 52 constituents were unambiguously or tentatively characterized from Gentiana radix, including 21 iridoids, 11 flavonoids, 19 xanthones, and a triterpenoid. This study demonstrated that the established method could be a rapid, effective analytical tool for screening and characterization of compounds in the complex systems of . By comparing the structure and peak areas of chemical constituents in crude and wine-processed Gentiana radix, we found that some compounds in crude and wine-processed Gentiana radix were significantly different.

Atractylodis Rhizoma is the dried rhizome of Atractylodes lancea (Thunb.) DC. or Atractylodes chinensis (DC.) Koidz and is often processed by stir-frying with wheat bran to reduce its dryness and increase its spleen tonifying activity. However, the mechanism by which the processing has this effect remains unknown. To explain the mechanism based on the pharmacokinetics of the active compounds, a rapid, sensitive ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was developed to analyze atractylenolides I, II, and III, and atractyloside A simultaneously in rat plasma after oral administration of raw and processed Atractylodis Rhizoma. Acetaminophen was used as the internal standard and the plasma samples were pretreated with methanol. Positive ionization mode coupled with multiple reaction monitoring mode was used to analyze the four compounds. The method validation revealed that all the calibration curves displayed good linear regression over the concentration ranges of 3.2&ndash, 350, 4&ndash, 500, 4&ndash, 500, and 3.44&ndash, 430 ng/mL for atractylenolides I, II, and III, and atractyloside A, respectively. The relative standard deviations of the intra- and inter-day precisions of the four compounds were less than 6% with accuracies (relative error) below 2.38%, and the extraction recoveries were more than 71.90 &plusmn, 4.97%. The main pharmacokinetic parameters of the four compounds were estimated with Drug and Statistics 3.0 and the integral pharmacokinetics were determined based on an area under the curve weighting method. The results showed that the integral maximum plasma concentration and area under the curve increased after oral administration of processed Atractylodis Rhizoma.

Atractylodis Rhizoma (AR), a kind of well-known traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), has a long history of being used to treat spleen-deficiency syndrome (SDS). Stir frying with bran is a common method of processing AR, as recorded in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, and is thought to enhance the therapeutic effect in TCM. Our previous studies have confirmed that bran-fried AR is superior to raw AR in terms of the improvement of gastrointestinal tract function. However, the biological mechanism of action is not yet clear. Here, we report the difference between raw and bran-fried AR in terms of the modulatory effect of intestinal microbiota. We found that the composition of intestinal microbiota of SDS rats changed significantly compared with healthy rats and tended to recover to normal levels after treatment with raw and bran-fried AR. Nine bacteria closely related to SDS were identified at the genus level. Among them, the modulatory effect between the raw and bran-fried AR was different. The improved modulation on Bacteroides, Escherichia-Shigella, Phascolarctobacterium, Incertae-Sedis (Defluviitaleaceae Family) and Incertae-Sedis (Erysipelotrichaceae Family) could be the mechanism by which bran-fried AR enhanced the therapeutic effect. Correlation analysis revealed that the modulation on intestinal microbiota was closely related to the secretion and expression of cytokines and gastrointestinal hormones. These findings can help us to understand the role and significance of bran-fried AR against SDS.

We discovered a stem cell factor (SCF)-triggered, MEK1-independent, and PI3K-dependent MAPK activation pathway in the Kit-expressing ovarian cancer cell line HEY. When we knocked down MEK1 with RNA interference (RNAi) to study the function of MEK1 on the proliferation and survival of ovarian cancer cells, we found that impaired cell growth still occurred after MEK1 expression had been suppressed, although MAPK activation remained intact. This suggests that there is MEK1-independent activation of MAPK in the SCF-induced ovarian cancer cell growth process, and that MEK1 still plays a crucial role in maintaining the malignant properties of ovarian cancer cells even when it fails to activate MAPK as expected.

To detect the expression of cancerous inhibitor of phosphatase 2A (CIP2A) in chronic myelocytic leukemia (CML) and investigate the mechanism underlying CIP2A knockdown-mediated cell proliferation and apoptosis as well as the interaction of CIP2A with breakpoint cluster region-Abelson leukemia virus (BCR-ABL). CIP2A mRNA and protein expression in chronic myelocytic leukemia-chronic (CML-CP) patients and healthy controls were determined by RT-PCR and Western blot. In vivo, c-Myc expression, PP2A activity, cell proliferation, and apoptosis of CML cells were detected with CIP2A depletion. In addition, the relationship among CIP2A, BCR-ABL, and tyrosine phosphatase SHP-1 was explored by depleting/overexpressing CIP2A or inhibiting BCR-ABL. The level of CIP2A mRNA was higher in CML-CP patients than healthy controls (56/74, 75.7 % vs. 1/35, 2.9 %, P < 0.001), and CIP2A protein was overexpressed in corresponding specimens. CIP2A knockdown by siRNA reduced the level of c-Myc protein and clonogenic formation, inhibited the activity of PP2A, K562 cell proliferation, and promoted cell apoptosis. Suppressing BCR-ABL by imatinib mesylate (IM) significantly decreased CIP2A expression. CIP2A knockdown decreased BCR-ABL but increased SHP-1 expression, and CIP2A overexpression had the reverse effect. CIP2A is overexpressed in CML-CP patients, and its expression may promote CML pathogenesis. CIP2A and BCR-ABL can regulate each other in a positive feedback loop. CIP2A may be a useful therapeutic target in CML-CP, particularly in patients with IM resistance. However, further studies are needed to validate the interaction between CIP2A and BCR-ABL using other tyrosine kinase inhibitors than IM.