China Journal of Chinese Materia Medica, the 1st in the field of TCM, is supervised by China Association for Science and Technology and sponsored by Institute of Chinese Pharmaceutical Association. The journal is China's earliest comprehensive core journal of traditional Chinese medicine, and always maintains the circulation top in the professional areas. The journal publishes the latest research and progress of traditional Chinese medicine and takes a leading position in numbers of articles published, downloads and citations among all journals in this discipline.
Its scope covers new achievements, technologies, methods, experiences and concepts resulting from the research on Chinese materia medica pursuant to Chinese medical and pharmaceutical theories, traditional experiences, and modern science and technology, including medicinal resources and identification, cultivation, processing, preparation, chemistry, pharmacology, theory of Chinese pharmacy and clinical practice, bencaological study.
The journal is included in CA, JST and CSCD.
Honorary Editor-in-Chief Xiao Peigen Editor-in-Chief Wang Yongyan
Associate Editors Zhang Boli, Hu Zhibi, Yao Xinsheng, Li Lianda, Li Dapeng, Yang Baofeng, Zhou Chaofan, Huang Luqi, Chen Shilin, Li He.
Executive Editorial Board Cai Shaoqing, Chen Shilin
Ten compounds were isolated from the 95% aqueous EtOH extract of Clerodendrum bungei by a combination of various chromatographic techniques including column chromatography over silica gel, Sephadex LH-20, MCI, ODS, and semi-preparative HPLC. Their structures were elucidated as 11, 12, 16S-trihydroxy-7-oxo-17 (15 →16), 18 (4 →3)-diabeo-abieta-3, 8, 11, 13-tetraen-18-oic acid (1), 12S*, 13R*-dihydroxy-9-oxo-octadeca-10 (E)-enoic acid (2), clerodenoside A (3), trichotomoside (4), glycosmisic acid (5), 4'-O-methylscutellarein (6), neroplomacrol (7), butylitaconic acid (8), hexylitaconic acid (9), p-hydroxybenzonic acid (10) by their physicochemical properties and spectroscopic data. Compounds 1 and 2 were new natural products, while compounds 7–10 were obtained from the genus Clerodendrum for the first time, and compounds 3, 5, 6 were isolated from this plant for the first time.
The rapid screening technology was used to investigate the transcriptional regulation effect of main chemical constituents in tubers of
Polygonum multiflorum, including 2,3,5,4′-tetrahydroxystilbene-2-
O-β-
D-glucopyranoside (THSG) and anthraquinones (such as rhein, chrysophanol, aloe-emodin, emodin) on CYP3A4 mediated by human pregnancy X receptor (PXR). The effect of chemical compositions on the cell activity was detected by MTS cell viability assay. IC
50 was calculated. The expression vector and the reporter vector were co-transfected into Hep G2 cells, with 10 μmol·L
−1 rifampicin (RIF) as a positive control, and 10 μmol·L
−1 ketoconazole (TKZ) as a negative control. After being treated with different concentrations of anthraquinones (2.5, 5, and 10 μmol·L
−1) for 24 h, the cells were tested for dual luciferase activity. The results showed that the inhibitory effects of THSG, chrysophanol, emodin, rhein and aloe-emodin on CYP3 A4 were inhibited by co-transfection of pc DNA3.1 and p GL4. 17-CYP3 A4. The expressions of pc DNA3.14-PXR and p GL4.17-CYP3 A4 were induced by the four compounds. Besides, emodin had a direct inducing effect. In conclusion, the four anthraquinone compounds have an inducing effect on CYP3 A4 by PXR, but emodin can directly induce CYP3 A4. THSG can inhibit CYP3 A4, but plasmid can induce CYP3 A4 after intervened with PXR. These results suggest that we should pay attention to the liver function and avoid liver damage in the combined administration of drugs.
Aristolochic acids (AAs) widely exist in such plants as
Aristolochia and
Asarum. The renal toxicity of AAs as well as its carcinogenicity to urinary system have been widely known. In 2003 and 2004, China prohibited the use of Caulis Aristolochia Manshuriensis, Radix Aristolochiae Fangchi and Radix Aristolochiae Debilis, and required administering other AAs-containing medicines in accordance with the regulations for prescription drugs. In this paper, we retrieved literatures on the content determination of AAs in recent 10 years in China. It suggested that the AAs content is lower in
Asarum herb, especially in its roots and rhizomes. There were no AA-I detected in most of Asarum-containing medicines and fairly small amount of AA-I detected in a few of them. Some of traditional Chinese medicines show fairly small amount of detectable AA-I. The AAs content in
Aristolochia herb (including Fructus Aristolochiae, Kaempfer dutchmanspipe root , and Aristolochiae Mollissimae) is relatively high; however, there are less literature for studying the content determination of AAs in Chinese patent medicines. There were many factors affecting AAs content, including the parts used, origins, processing methods, extraction process. It suggested that we should pay attention to the toxicity of Chinese medicines containing AAs and use these decoction pieces and traditional Chinese medicines cautiously. In addition, basic studies for the origins, processing methods and extraction process of Chinese patent medicines containing AAs, as well as supervision and detection of AAs content in traditional Chinese medicinal materials, decoction pieces and Chinese patent medicines shall be strengthened for reducing medication risk and guaranteeing clinical medication safety.
The results of a toxicity analysis showed differences from those of the existing experimental data. Therefore, HPLC-ICP-MS was used to analyze the soluble arsenic content at different valences in realgar prepared with water grind processing, which were collected from three companies. The results showed that the free arsenic of the three companies did not exceed the limit of
Chinese Pharmacopoeia. However, if the free arsenic was calculated based on the total value of As (Ⅲ) + As (Ⅴ), free arsenic of one company exceeded the limit of
Chinese Pharmacopoeia. The method of determining free arsenic in
Chinese Pharmacopoeia was ancient Cai’s arsenic detection method, which had a certain limitation and failed to effectively avoid the toxicity of remaining arsenics except for trivalent arsenic. Then, we examined the effects of water and temperature on the content and form of soluble arsenic in realgar. The results showed that the content of soluble arsenic increased with the rise of water content, and the form of soluble arsenic did not change, there were only As (Ⅲ) and As (Ⅴ); With the simple temperature factor, there was an increasing trend in the content of soluble arsenic in the samples, the maximum increment was As (Ⅲ) 2.489 mg·g
−1and As (Ⅴ) 0.546 mg·g
−1; When water and temperature played an synergistic effect, the increase of soluble arsenic in the samples significantly changed, the maximum increment was As (Ⅲ) 23.690 mg·g
−1, As (Ⅴ) 0.468 mg·g
−1, respectively. Through comprehensive analysis, we believed that the quality of realgar was susceptible to water content and temperature. Both of the single effect of water content and the synergistic effect of water and temperature can significantly change the content of soluble arsenic in realgar, and the water content was a high-risk factor. In the current
Chinese Pharmacopoeia of 2015 edition, the free arsenic detection method had limitations, hence new techniques shall be introduced; At the same time, realgar does not have a water content inspection item in the current pharmacopoeia, which shall be added. However, due to the limit of water content, more in-depth studies are required.
Ginsenosides are the main active ingredient and allelochemicals of
Panax ginseng, and they play an important role in ginseng growth and in ecological adaptation. To study the influence of ginsenosides on soil microbial communities, the method of given exogenous total ginsenosides of different concentrations was used to study the influence of ginsenosides on new forest soil microbial community, evaluate the change of metabolic activity of microbial community and investigate the ecological effect of ginsenosides on soil microbial community. The results showed that, the exogenous total ginsenosides promoted the metabolic activity of microbial community in new forest soil at different concentrations compared with the control after 10 d and 40 d treatment. After 10 d, except for the Evenness index, all of the other indexes indicated that the functional diversity of the soil microbial community in the new forest firstly increased then decreased with increase of the total ginsenosides concentration. The substrate richness for 0.01 g·L
−1 soil treatment was significantly different from that of the control. After 20 d, 30 d and 40 d, except for the evenness index, all of the other indexes indicated that the functional diversity of the soil microbial community in the new forest increased with the total ginsenosides. These results suggested that ginsenosids could change the soil microbial community and microbial metabolic activity, which alter the soil microbial ecology and accordingly affect the growth of ginseng with accumulation of ginsenosides in the soil.
To identify biomarkers for spleen qi deficiency by analyzing small molecule metabolites in urine, in order to expound the relationship between biomarkers and metabolic pathways. The spleen qi deficiency model was established through dietary restriction and overstrain. All of the rats received D-xylose absorption experiment and blood routine test. Urine samples were collected in the next day. The urine samples were analyzed using UPLC-Q-TOF-MS to obtain the dataset of urine metabolic group. Principal component analysis (PCA), orthogonal partialleast squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) and other multivariate statistical methods were employed to evaluate the quality of the dataset and screen out potential biomarkers of spleen qi deficiency. The results of D-xylose absorption and blood routine demonstrated that the spleen qi deficiency model was successfully established. In positive ion mode and negative ion mode, PCA and OPLS-DA score plots could clearly distinguish model group and blank group. According to S-plot of OPLS-DA, VIP value,
t-test and area under receiver operating characteristic curve ( ROC), 24 biomarkers, including phenylalanine, succinic acid, aconitic acid, isocitrate acid, betaine, kynurenine, indole, creatine, creatinine, orotic acid, xanthine, and xanthurenic acid, were identified as associated with the spleen qi deficiency, mainly involving energy metabolism, amino acid metabolism, tryptophan metabolism, purine metabolism and pyrimidine metabolism. Urine metabolomics method combined with online software package for data processing and analysis metabolic pathway can provide new methods and ideas for studies for spleen qi deficiency and other traditional Chinese medicine symptoms.
