Search

Skeletal muscle transforming growth factor-β-activated kinase 1 (TAK1) continuous excessive phosphorylation was observed in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients and mdx mice. Inhibiting TAK1 phosphorylation ameliorated fibrosis and muscular atrophy, while TAK1 knockout also impaired muscle regeneration. The definite effect and mechanism of p-TAK1 in muscle regeneration disorder is still obscure. In this study, BaCl

Duckweed is a kind of aquatic plant with the characteristics of high nutritional value and medicinal benefits. However, most researches focused on the natural germplasms. The underlying metabolic pathway remains to be systematically elaborated in duckweed. In our laboratory, one reddish-purple mutant with high-flavonoids was screened from a mutant library of Spirodela polyrhiza 6068, named 68-red. The content of anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins in 68-red mutant increased by 563.47% and 231.19%, respectively, compared to wild type. It is interesting that cynaroside and orientin content were significantly increased, in contrast, apigetrin and vitexin were decreased in 68-red mutant. Considering this, metabolome and transcriptome were employed to explore the flavonoids biosynthetic pathway. Here, a total of 734 metabolites were identified in the wild type and 68-red mutant. Among which, cyanidin-3-O-glucoside, cyanidin-3-O-galactoside, pelargonidin-3-O-glucoside and pelargonidin-3-O-(6″-O-malonyl)glucoside were significantly accumulated, which were positively correlated with deep reddish-purple of 68-red mutant. In addition, proanthocyanidins (B1, B2, B3, B4, C1, C2), flavonoid and its glycosides (11 luteolin and its glycosides, 14 quercetin and its glycosides, 14 kaempferol and its glycosides, 2 apigenin glycosides) were significantly accumulated, 2 apigenin glycosides were down-regulated in 68-red mutant. The transcriptome data and qRT-PCR indicated that 16 enzyme genes in flavonoids biosynthetic pathway (PAL, C4H, CHSs, F3H, ANS, ANR, F3'Hs, DFRs, LAR, GT1, BZ1) were significantly up-regulated in 68-red mutant. Correlation analysis found that three copies of F3'H gene play important roles in the synthesis of anthocyanins, luteolin and apigenin glycosides. In conclusion, the 68-red mutant is a high quality germplasm resources for food and medical industry. Metabolome and transcriptome provide new insight for exploring the enzyme genes and functional metabolites in duckweed.

Thymus quinquelostatus Celak, a kind of food additive and folk medicine, has obvious antioxidative and anti-inflammatory effects. However, there have been no reports about the cardioprotective effects of polyphenol-rich fraction from Thymus quinquelostatus Celak (TCPRF). Here, we predicted the targets and pathways of TCPRF related to myocardial ischemia (MI) using network pharmacology, and examined the effects as well as the mechanisms of TCPRF in ISO-induced MI mice. The results verified that TCPRF could decrease the serum CK level, improve ECG and the pathological alterations of myocardium. TCPRF also increased SOD activity, decreased MDA content, reduced the positive apoptotic cells, decreased the expression of Bax, and increase the expression of Bcl-2, PI3K and p-AKT in the myocardium. These results demonstrated that TCPRF was able to alleviate ISO-induced MI injury, which is partly related to inhibiting myocardium apoptosis, antioxidation and activating PI3K/AKT pathway.

Background Thymus quinquecostatus Celak. has been widely used as a spice and a folk medicine for relieving exterior syndrome and alleviating pain in China. Purpose To explore the protective effects and the underlying mechanism against cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury (CIRI) of the T. quinquecostatus combining with its chemical composition. Study design and methods High-polar extract (HPE) was extracted from T. quinquecostatus and polyphenols in HPE were enriched to obtain polyphenol-rich fraction (PRF) using Macroporous resin. The free radicals and zebrafish embryos were used to compare the antioxidant activities of HPE and PRF in vitro and in vivo. Then, the transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAO) model was established in rats. Neurological deficit score, infarction rate, morphology and apoptosis of neurons were examined to investigate the protective effects of PRF on CIRI. The mRNA and protein levels of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and hemeoxygenase-1 (HO-1) and the activities of downstream antioxidant enzymes in ischemia tissues were determined to clarify the underlying mechanisms. Also, reactive oxygen species (ROS) level in zebrafish embryos were detected after incubation with PRF for a short time (2 h) to investigate whether PRF could directly eliminate free radicals. Finally, chemical composition of PRF were analyzed to investigate the material basis for antioxidant activity and anti-CIRI effect. Results Compared with HPE, PRF showed stronger antioxidant activities. PRF exhibited obvious protective effects including ameliorating neurological deficit, lowering infarction rate, and improving the cellular morphology in hippocampus CA1 and cortex after tMCAO. TUNEL staining suggested PRF dose-dependently improved the apoptosis of the neurons in ischemic cortex. RT-qPCR and Western Blot results suggested that PRF regulated oxidative stress (OS) via activating the Keap1/Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathway. Also, PRF could directly scavenge excessive ROS in zebrafish embryos after a short-time PRF incubation. The anti-CIRI effect might be primarily attributed to the abundant polyphenols in PRF, including flavonoids, polymethoxylated flavonoids, flavonoid glycosides, and phenolic acids. Conclusion T. quinquecostatus contains abundant polyphenols and exhibited a good protective effect against CIRI via dual antioxidant mechanisms, providing a reference for further research and application for this plant.

The genus Thymus (Lamiaceae) comprises about 214 species throughout the world, mainly found in North Africa, Europe, and temperate Asia zone. They are traditionally used as food additives and folk medicines. This review comprehensively summarizes information about traditional uses, chemical constituents, and biological activities of this genus and provides recommendations for future investigations. All information was gathered from scientific databases including Google Scholar, Sci-Finder, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and CNKI. Volatile oils are the most concerned constituents of this genus. Flavonoids, phenylpropanoids, tannins, organic acids, terpenoids, and phytosterols were also summarized. This genus plants possessed a variety of activities including antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, cytotoxic, analgesic, and antidiabetic. In brief, this review will be helpful to provide valuable data for explorations and create more interests towards Thymus genus in the future.

The anti-rheumatic fraction (ARF), is responsible for the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of Dianbaizhu derived from the aerial part of Gaultheria leucocarpa var. yunnanensis (Ericaceae). The gastrointestinal metabolism of ARF was investigated in vitro through simulating a series of models-gastric juice, intestinal juice, and human intestinal bacteria, analyzed by HPLC-DAD and UPLC-LTQ-Orbitrap-MSn. ARF includes three categories: methyl salicylate glycosides, organic acids and the others. The primordial and metabolic components of ARF bio-transformed by simulated gastric fluid (36 and 13), intestinal fluid (29 and 7) and two human fecal bacteria (34 and 34, 40 and 25) were characterized, respectively. The methyl salicylate glycosides, MSTG-B, MSTG-A and gaultherin, with terminal-xylosyl-moiety in sugar chain were always being found in the whole gastrointestinal incubation processing. The metabolites were formed through hydrolysis of ester and glucosidic bond, as well as methylation, hydroxylation, acetylation, sulfation, reduction, decarboxylation, deglycosylation and glucuronidation. The metabolic conversion effect of the four index compounds, MSTG-B, MSTG-A, gaultherin, and chlorogenic acid by human intestinal bacteria exhibited much stronger. Those markers' variation in content-time curve in volunteer A gut flora were faster than that in volunteer B's. These results indicate that ARF is relatively stable in the gastrointestinal tract.

N&uuml, Er-Cha, produced from the leaves of Rhamnus heterophylla Oliv., is known as an herbal tea and used in the treatment of bleeding, irregular menstruation and dysentery. A method was developed for the quality assessment of herbal tea, N&uuml, Er-Cha, adopting physical parameters, chemical constituents and sensory profiles as various potential factors. Their inner relationship was mined by multivariate statistical analysis tools, and the three factors were integrated by a technique for order preference by a similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approach to comprehensively analyze the characters of N&uuml, Er-Cha. Viscosity was also introduced to the physical parameter determination besides conductivity, pH and color. Seven common peaks of eight batches of N&uuml, Er-Cha were marked by a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprint. They were further identified by HPLC mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) as hydroxybenzoic acids and flavanol glycosides. Fifty trained members participated in the sensory evaluation. Significant correlations between total sensory scores and conductivity, viscosity as well as pH were observed, a relatively innovative result for the quality assessment of herbal teas. The common peaks, belonging to hydroxybenzoic acids and flavanol glycosides, were mainly related to the color of infusions and leaves. The result of the TOPSIS analysis showed that S3 and S4 ranked as the top two in the comprehensive quality assessment. This may be related to rhamnetin triglycoside with a galactose/glucose and two rhamnoses, which had a higher peak response in S3 and S4 than that in the other samples. The present study may contribute to a better understanding of the relationship regarding physical properties, chemical composition and sensory profiles, and it may supply ideas for the comprehensive quality assessment of the herbal tea N&uuml, Er-Cha.

Thymus quinquecostatus Celak is a species of thyme in China and it used as condiment and herbal medicine for a long time. To set up the quality evaluation of T. quinquecostatus, the response surface methodology (RSM) based on its 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity was introduced to optimize the extraction condition, and the main indicator components were found through an UPLC-LTQ-Orbitrap MSn method. The ethanol concentration, solid-liquid ratio, and extraction time on optimum conditions were 42.32%, 1:17.51, and 1.8 h, respectively. 35 components having 12 phenolic acids and 23 flavonoids were unambiguously or tentatively identified both positive and negative modes to employ for the comprehensive analysis in the optimum anti-oxidative part. A simple, reliable, and sensitive HPLC method was performed for the multi-component quantitative analysis of T. quinquecostatus using six characteristic and principal phenolic acids and flavonoids as reference compounds. Furthermore, the chemometrics methods (principal components analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA)) appraised the growing areas and harvest time of this herb closely relative to the quality-controlled. This study provided full-scale qualitative and quantitative information for the quality evaluation of T. quinquecostatus, which would be a valuable reference for further study and development of this herb and related laid the foundation of further study on its pharmacological efficacy.