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To reveal the correlation between the metabolites profiles and the wood color variation, metabolomics analysis of heartwood (HW) and sapwood (SW) of Chinese fir at two different ages was performed. The metabolite profiling was obtained using ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometer (UPLC/Q-TOF-MS/MS). The results demonstrated that a total of 12,581 metabolites were obtained, of which 850 were annotated to the Human Metabolome Database (HMDB). Principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least squares-discriminantion analysis (OPLS-DA) displayed a distinctly variation from HW group and SW group, 21 phenolic compounds including flavonoids, coumarins and derivatives, and stilbenes accumulated most in the HW group, which could be responsible for the darker of HW. As for variation in metabolites between tree ages, the HW and SW from older Chinese fir accumulated greater frequency of secondary metabolites than those from the younger ones. The metabolic pathway enrichment analysis revealed the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway extremely changed between the groups of HW and SW, HW-24Y and HW-19Y, and SW-24Y and SW-19Y, respectively, implying that the identified flavonoid metabolites in this study could clarify the wood color difference between HW and SW in kaihua 3 clone Chinese fir. The results of this study may provide valuable information regarding how the metabolic compositions and the potential of flavonoid pathway alter the wood coloring.

A preliminary chemical investigation on 70% MeOH extract of the roots of Asparagus cochinchinensis resulted in the isolation of nine steroids. These isolates comprised of four new C21 (1–4) and one new pregnane (5) glycosides, and four known C27 (6–9) spirostanol steroids. Their structures were identified via analysis of the spectroscopic data and the results of hydrolytic cleavage. The cytotoxic activities of the compounds were tested toward the human tumor cell line Hela (cervical cancer), and compounds 7 and 8 displayed moderate activity with IC50 values of 35.5 and 39.6 μM, respectively.

Actein is a triterpene glycoside isolated from the rhizomes of Cimicifuga foetida (Chinese herb “shengma”) which could inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells. Nevertheless, the effect of actein on angiogenesis, which is an essential step for tumor growth and metastasis, has never been reported. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the in vitro and in vivo effects of actein on angiogenesis using human microvascular endothelial cells (HMEC-1), matrigel plug and tumor-bearing mouse models. Our results showed that actein significantly inhibited the proliferation, reduced the migration and motility of endothelial cells, and it could suppress the protein expressions of VEGFR1, pJNK and pERK, suggesting that JNK/ERK pathways were involved. In vivo results showed that oral administration of actein at 10 mg/kg for 7 days inhibited blood vessel formation in the growth factor-containing matrigel plugs. Oral actein treatments (10–15 mg/kg) for 28 days resulted in decreasing mouse 4T1 breast tumor sizes and metastasis to lungs and livers. The apparent reduced angiogenic proteins (CD34 and Factor VIII) expressions and down-regulated metastasis-related VEGFR1 and CXCR4 gene expressions were observed in breast tumors. Our novel findings provide insights into the use of actein for development of anti-angiogenic agents for breast cancer.

Six new physalin steroids, 7β-methoxylisophysalin B (1), 7β-methoxylphysalin C (2), physalin V (3), physalin VI (4), physalin VII (5), isophysalin I (6), together with 20 known physalins (7-26) were isolated from calyces of Physalis alkekengi var. franchetii. Structures of the new compounds were revealed through 1D and 2D NMR and mass spectroscopic methods. Compounds 1-26 were evaluated for cytotoxicity against human HL-60, SMMC-7721, A-549, MCF-7 and SW-480, and the results indicated that compounds 8, 11, and 14 displayed potent cytotoxicities (IC505μM) in vitro. Further antibacterial assay indicated that compounds 8, 14, and 19 showed high antibacterial activities against Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli.

Melatonin is predominantly involved in signaling circadian and seasonal rhythms, and its synthesis is regulated by the environmental light/dark cycle. The selection pressure by geographically different environmental light/dark cycles, which is predominantly determined by sunshine duration, on the global distribution of genetic polymorphisms in the melatonin pathway is not well understood. Recent genetic association studies identified various disease-predisposition polymorphisms in this pathway. We investigated the correlations between the prevalence of these clinically important single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and sunshine duration among worldwide human populations from twelve regions in the CEPH-HGDP database rs4753426, a recently reported predisposition SNP for type 2 diabetes in the promoter of the MT(2) melatonin receptor gene (MTNR1B), which was not included in the CEPH-HGDP genotyping array, was additionally genotyped. This SNP showed a marginally significant correlation in 760 CEPH-HGDP DNA samples (r = -0.5346, P = 0.0733), and it showed the most prominent association among the candidate melatonin pathway SNPs examined. To control for population structure, which may lead to a false positive correlation, we genotyped this SNP in a replication set of 1792 subjects from China. The correlation was confirmed among Chinese populations (r = -0.8694, P = 0.0002), and was also statistically significant after correction of other climatic and geographical covariants in multiple regression analysis (beta = -0.907, P = 1.94 x 10(-5)). Taken together, it suggests that the human melatonin signaling pathway, particularly MT(2) melatonin receptor may have undergone a selective pressure in response to global variation in sunshine duration.