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The effects of twelve different pre-drying and drying methods on the chemical composition in the pericarp and kernel of

Polysaccharide, the main component of Polygonatum kingianum, has been proven to have many pharmacological effects, such as antioxidant, anti-aging and anti-bacteria. The accumulation of polysaccharides was greatly influenced by the growth age of P. kingianum. Therefore, a fast and low-cost chemometric method is needed to identify the growth age. Attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) and ultraviolet visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy of P. kingianum with four growth ages (80 samples) were collected and analyzed by chemometric methods. The correlation between 13 agronomic traits and polysaccharide accumulation was discussed. A data fusion strategy was used to identify the growth age of P. kingianum by extracting the latent variables (LVs) and principal components (PCs) of the spectra. The results founded that the polysaccharide content showed a negative correlation the fibrous root number, leaf length, leaf width, stem diameter and fresh weight on the ground part. The ATR-FTIR and UV-Vis spectra in P. kingianum with different growth ages were similar. The regions of 1750–1500 cm−1, 1000–750 cm−1 and 200–250 nm, 330–360 nm are important variables for discriminating four growth ages of P. kingianum. The classification effect of data fusion models was better than that of single spectra models with 100% accuracy as well as perfect sensitivity and specificity. Hierarchical cluster analysis shown that the samples were divided into two categories: one 5-year-old and the other 2, 3 and 4-year-old. In summary, the polysaccharide content in 4-year-old P. kingianum by seed reproduction was the highest. Data fusion of ATR-FTIR and UV-Vis spectra combined with PLS-DA models could be used to accurately distinguish P. kingianum in different growth ages, which was valuable for the identification and evaluation of other medicinal and edible homologous plants. Meanwhile, it also provides a theoretical basis for the harvesting age and cultivation conditions of P. kingianum.

A novel gadolinium diethylenetriamine-N, N-bis (2-acetamide benzoic acid)-N, N-bisacetic acid complex has been synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, infrared spectrum, ultraviolet spectroscopy and thermal analysis. The interaction between Gd3+and aminopolycarboxlicacid ligand was investigated by fluorescence titration. The binding constant of this complex is calculated to be 1.2018×104L·mol-1, and binding stoichiometry is 1:1. Fluorescence spectra was also used to study the interaction between Gd (III) complex and bovine serum album (BSA). The results showed that Gd (III) complex can effectively quench the intrinsic fluorescence of BSA via static quenching. According to Stern-Volmer equation and Linewerver-Burk equation, the binding constant is calculated to be 3.7491×104L·mol-1and binding site is about 1.0.

The study aimed to determine the contents of secoiridoids activity compounds in different organs of Gentiana rigescens, and investigate the effects of growing age and cultivation method on the secoiridoids contents. The active compound contents in the root, the major medicinal part of G. rigescens, were higher than those in other organs. The active compounds contents in the leaf and flower were the highest among aerial parts. Effect of growing age and cultivation method on quality of the root was less significant than the aerial parts. The G. rigescens grown for 2 years could reach the requirement of the active contents in China. Key words: Gentiana rigescens, chemical content, gentiopicroside, swertiamarin, sweroside.

Recent studies have suggested that dysregulation of autophagy plays a pivotal role in tumorigenesis. Here, we determined the prognostic value of autophagy-related protein Beclin 1 in gastric cancer. A total of 153 primary gastric cancer patients were subjected to analysis of Beclin 1 expression and survival prognosis. Among them, 68 patients were assigned randomly and used as a training set to generate a cutoff score for Beclin 1 expression by receive operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. The ROC-generated cutoff score was subjected to analyze the association of Beclin 1 with clinical characteristics and patient outcome. In a testing set (n = 85) and overall patients (n = 153), both univariate and multivariate analysis found that low expression of Beclin 1 predicted adverse overall survival and progression-free survival for gastric cancer patients. Furthermore, in each stage of gastric cancer patients, Beclin 1 expression was a prognostic indicator in patients with stage II, III and IV. Importantly, a reverse relationship between Beclin 1 and Bcl-xL expression was demonstrated. In patients of elevated Bcl-xL expression, a subset with lower Beclin 1 expression displayed an inferior overall survival and progression-free survival than those with higher Beclin 1 expression. Thus, our data demonstrated that low expression of Beclin 1, associated with high Bcl-xL, played as an independent biomarker, contributing to a more aggressive cancer cell phenotype and poor prognosis for gastric tumor.

The plants of genus Paris, as important Chinese traditional herbs, have been studied from phytochemicals and pharmacological viewpoints for decades, which resulted in the discovery of scores of secondary metabolites with various kinds of bioactivities. This article summarizes the research progress of the genus Paris in the phytochemical and pharmacological respects.

Spinal N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor 2B subunit (NR2B)-increased expression plays an important role in the facilitation and maintenance of the persistent pain state due to peripheral nerve injury. A vaccination strategy to reduce the expression of brain protein is feasible and may have therapeutic potential for neurological disorders. Thus, we investigated the effect of oral immunization with recombinant adenovirus serotype 5-mediated NR2B gene transfer (rAd5/NR2B) for the modulation of neuropathic pain. After peroral administration of the rAd5/NR2B vaccine, transgene NR2B expression persisted for at least a week and was associated with the induction of high serum titers of NR2B-specific antibodies. Following the occurrence of mechanical allodynia due to peripheral nerve injury, NR2B-specific antibodies could pass the blood-brain barrier, transport and subsequently bind to the spinal NR2B protein. The humoral immunoresponse results in the strong antiallodynia in the spared nerve injury animal model. These data proved the feasibility of oral immunization with rAd5/NR2B for the prevention of neuropathic pain.

The contents of Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, and Zn in fruiting bodies of the highly-prized matsutake mushroom (Tricholoma matsutake) from twelve widely separated sites in Southwest China were determined using AAS. The results for dried mushrooms showed that the mean contents (mg kg−1) of the determined elements decreased in the following order: K (440–2000), Na (150–740), Ca (90–850), Mg (90–680), Zn (20–180), Fe (13–78), Cu (0.34–45), Mn (0.09–7.6).

Species of Paris are important medicinal plants of China. They possess anticancer, hot alexipharmic, detumescence, acesodyne, and arrest blood and remove blood stasis effects. They are the main raw material for several Chinese patent drugs such as "Yunnan Baiyao", "Gong Xue Ning", "Re Du Qing" and "Ji De Sheng Sheyaopian". The present paper, through optimizing the chloroform, absolute ethyl alcohol and water extraction condition of Paris by orthogonal test L3(4) (16), using mean value, smoothness and second differential methods on the observed UV spectrum, to inspects the RSD of stability and repeatability of different waveband. By SIMCA and the common and variant peak ratio dual index sequence analysis method, it evaluated the quality and quantity of Paris. The results showed that at the time of 50, 40 and 50 min, chloroform, absolute ethyl alcohol and water had the highest extraction ratios. Within 20 h, the RSDs of stability were 0.06-1.88, 0.05-2.42 and 0.03-0.35; the RSDs of accuracy were 0-1.48, 0.05-0.37 and 0.09-0.44; and the RSDs of repeatability were 0-1.23, 0.04-0.30 and 0.12-0.25 respectively. The qualitative analysis revealed large differences between different Paris species and different areas. The quantitative analysis indicated that the highest common peak ratio among the Paris samples was 80.00% and the lowest variant peak ratio was 6.25%. The method evaluated Paris of different species and from different producing areas, and also quantitatively assessed the arbitrary two samples, clarified the similarity between the species and areas of Paris, which provided basis of distinguishing the real and false, identification of variety and quality evaluation for Chinese herbal medicine.

To find out variety of the fungal diseases of cultivated Gentiana rigescens and provide important basis for prevention.The diseases were diagnosed based on field investigate, symptoms observation, pathogen isolation, determination the size of morphological and verification following the Koch's Postulate procedures.Anthracnose (Colletotrichum gloeosporioides), grey mould (Botrytis cinerea), brown spot (Alternaria tenuis), rust (Aecidiumpers), circular spot (Pestalotiopsis), leaf blight (Stemphylium, Ascochyta, Pleospora) and nematodes (Heterodera spp., Meloidogyne spp.) were found on Gentiana rigescens. Anthracnose was the first main disease, the diseased plant rate was over 40% and disease severity was 4 - 5 degree and second disease was rust, incidence of rate was less 10% and other diseases rate was not enough 2%.All these diseases on Gentiana rigescens are reported for the first time and Gentiana rigescens is the new host plant of the diseases.

To investigate the apoptosis induction effect by the rat recombinant caspase-3.Reversed rat caspase-3 gene was gained by settling the small subunit prior to the large one through recombinant PCR, and cloned into the expression vector to transfect human 293T cells and rat immortalized neural progenitor cells. The expression and pro-apoptotic effect of recombinant caspase-3 was observed by the changes of morphology of the transfected cells through immunofluorescence and analyzed by Annexin V-FITC staining, Flowcytometry and MTT assay.The transfected cells presented obvious apoptosis as detected by immunofluorescence. MTT assay showed that the proliferation of recombinant caspase-3 transfected cells was significantly inhibited [(48.35 +/- 0.16)%, (44.61 +/- 0.15)%] (P0.05). Annexin V-FITC staining revealed that the percentage of apoptotic cells in the transfectants of recombinant caspase-3 gene was [(30.7 +/- 1.5)%, (16.0 +/- 1.0)%] (P0.05), which was much higher than that of control cells.Rat recombinant caspase-3 can be expressed and induce apoptosis effectively, and used safely both in vitro and in vivo. It can also cause neural cells to death.

Descending facilitation from the rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM) contributes to some pathological pain states. The intra-RVM microinjection with dermorphin-saporin could specifically abolish this facilitation in rodent models by selectively ablating the RVM neurons expressing mu opioid receptors. Thus, this targeted lesion may be an alternative mechanism-based approach for intractable pain. This research was performed to investigate potential side effects after a single intra-RVM application of dermorphin-saporin in rats. Results showed though some acute cardiovascular signs were observed with dermorphin-saporin, the treatment exhibited no long-lasting significant influence on some physiological functions for up to 3-month observation period, including normal sensory function, locomotor activity, ingestive behaviors, body weight, rectal temperature, respiratory rate, heart rate, systolic blood pressure, cardiac structure and function. Moreover, there were only mild microglial responses on day 7 post-microinjection, while no significant increase in the immunostaining of astrocytes and no noticeable up-regulation in the production of proinflammatory cytokines were detected in the RVM treated with dermorphin-saporin. Taken together, these data would suggest that this selective ablation of mu opioid receptor bearing descending facilitatory neurons in the RVM with dermorphin-saporin did not elicit the long-standing evident adverse toxicity in terms of some physiological parameters and neurochemical alterations we determined, plausibly providing us a safe and reliable approach to treat some intractable pain.

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) acquires an unfavorable prognosis, emerging as a major challenge for the treatment of breast cancer. In the present study, 122 TNBC patients were subjected to analysis of Aurora-A (Aur-A) expression and survival prognosis. We found that Aur-A high expression was positively associated with initial clinical stage (P = 0.025), the proliferation marker Ki-67 (P = 0.001), and the recurrence rate of TNBC patients (P

Various species of Paris have been used in treatments for their antitumor, antimicrobial, hemostatic, anthelmintic and immune-stimulating properties, among others. The bioactive markers of these plants including paris saponins I (PSI), paris saponins II (PSII), paris saponins VI (PSVI) and paris saponins VII (PSVII) are responsible for inhibiting nasopharyngeal carcinoma epithelial cell and ethanol-induced gastric lesions. This paper intends to comprehensively characterize the distribution of bioactive markers and illustrate the relationship between chemical profile and Paris spp.. A targeted quantitative analysis by ultra high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) was established for the simultaneous separation and determination of PSI, PSII, PSVI and PSVII. Non-targeted analysis based on Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, with the aid of partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), was also performed. In addition, similarity analysis combining UHPLC and FT-IR spectroscopy were employed to evaluate Paris of different species and geographical origins. Quantitative analysis indicated that the content of saponins varied markedly, and the average total saponins of Paris axialis (PA) of a specific region (Baoshan) was higher than the other species. In addition, total saponins of P. polyphylla var. yunnanensis (PPY) collected from Xishuangbanna was higher than the same species of other regions. Non-targeted analysis indicated that PA was different from other species and PPY in the Baoshan differed from other regions. The results indicate that comprehensive analyses for geographical origin discrimination of herbal medicines are expected to be employed in further investigations.