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
To explore the prevention and protection effect of Diosocorea nipponica (DNM) on acute gouty arthritis (AGA) rats based on liver metabonomics, and find potential biomarkers and related pathways. AGA model rats were induced by monosodium urate crystal suspension. The UPLC-TOF-MS coupled with pattern recognition technique was employed to find out the potential biomarkers and related metabolic pathways. Eleven common potential biomarkers were identified. Among the potential intervention targets in normal rats given by DNM, 4 biomarkers were up-regulated, and the other 4 targets were down regulated. Among the potential intervention targets in AGA rats given by DNM, 5 metabolites were up-regulated by MSU and 5 metabolites were down regulated. The abnormal expression levels of adenosine monophosphate, 5-methyltetrahydrofolic acid, oxidized glutathione, hypoxanthine, docosahexaenoic acid, glutathione, uridine diphosphate glucose and inosine could be corrected by DNM extract. Three pathways were founded with the greatest correlation, including purine metabolism, starch and sucrose metabolism and glutathione metabolism. Therefore, it could be inferred that D. nipponica had the effect for anti-acute gouty arthritis by intervening endogenous metabolites from the liver under physiological condition and acute gouty arthritis condition.
The aim of this study was to observe the anti-hyperglycemic effect of Puerariae Lobatae Radix in hepatocyte insulin resistance (IR) models, and investigate its preliminary molecular mechanism. IR-HepG2 cell model was stably established with 1 × 10−9 mol·L−1 insulin plus 3.75 × 10−6 mol·L−1 dexamethasone treatment for 48 h according to optimized protocol in our research group. After IR-HepG2 cells were treated with different concentrations (5%, 10% and 15%) of Puerariae Lobatae Radix-containing serum, cell viability was detected by CCK-8 assay; the glucose consumptions in IR-HepG2 cells were separately detected at different time points (12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 30, 36 h) by using glucose oxidase method; intracellular glycogen content was detected by anthrone method; and the protein expression levels of leptin receptor (Ob-R), insulin receptor substrate-2 (IRS2), glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) and GLUT2 were detected by Western blot assay. The results showed that Puerariae Lobatae Radix-containing serum (5%, 10% and 15%) had no significant effect on IR-HepG2 cell viability; 5% and 10% Puerariae Lobatae Radix-containing serum significantly increased glucose consumption of IR-HepG2 cells (P < 0.01) at 18, 21 and 24 h; 15% Puerariae Lobatae Radix-containing serum elevated the glucose consumption of IR-HepG2 cells at 15 h (P < 0.05), and significantly elevated the glucose consumption at 18, 21, 24 and 30 h (P < 0.01) in a dose-dependent manner. The optimized time of anti-hyperglycemic effect was defined as 24 h, and further study showed that Puerariae Lobatae Radix-containing serum could increase intracellular glycogen content after 24 h treatment (P < 0.01), and up-regulate IRS2, Ob-R, GLUT1 and GLUT2 protein expression levels. Our results indicated that the Puerariae Lobatae Radix-containing serum could achieve the anti-hyperglycemic effect through important PI3K/PDK signaling pathway partially by up-regulating the expression levels of Ob-R and IRS2, GLUT1 and GLUT2 in IR-HepG2 cells, accelerating the glucose transport into hepatocytes and increasing hepatic glycogen synthesis to enhance the anti-hyperglycemic effect of IR-HepG2 cells.
As outstanding representatives of traditional Chinese herbal prescriptions, classical traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) excellent prescriptions (cTCMeP) summarize the clinical experiences of TCM physicians throughout generations and are the most important part of TCM resources. In order to encourage the development of cTCMeP, the Chinese central government and related administrative departments successively issued a series of policies, but agreement has not been concluded on some key issues under study. Therefore, massive tasks still need to be tackled during the development of cTCMeP. Based on the analysis of research and development, registration and management regulations of botanical drug products in main developed countries as well as the actual use of cTCMeP, the difficulties and key issues that may be confronted in the coming research and development were discussed. This article initially introduced the use of reference decoction by traditional preparations (RDETPs) for consistency evaluation during the authentic research and development of cTCMeP, and stressed the application of mass balance consistency of the whole components and biological potency consistency within mass consistency strategies in manufacturing techniques, process control and quality control of finished products, while putting forward to issues that should be drawn full attention to and confirmed, like the composition of prescriptions, doses, and the botanical origins of herbs. Furthermore, suggestions were also proposed about “the questions that may happen after cTCMeP products are marketed and corresponding solutions”, so as to promote joint effects for promoting the simplified registration of cTCMeP.
The study aims at determining the content of anthocyanins, expressions of relative genes, and activities of relative enzymes. The effects of flood stress on anthocyanin synthesis with relative genes and enzymes of Chrysanthemum morifolium cv. ‘Hangju’ were analyzed. The expression of CHS and the content of CHS presented the trend of first rising and then downward with the increase of flowering degree. The content of anthocyanins, the expression of DFR, and the activity of DFR presented the trend of first downward and then rising with the increase of flowering degree. Anthocyanins showed positive correlations with DFR gene and DFR, but no significant correlation with CHS gene and CHS. Flood stress had significant effects on anthocyanin synthesis with relative genes and enzymes of Ch. morifolium cv. ‘Hangju’, but did not change the pattern of gene expression and accumulation of anthocyanins and enzymes. DFR is the key enzyme of anthocyanin synthesis.
Dendrobium species on the ancient Chinese herbal texts were investigated in this paper, including their dscriptions of original species, producing areas and quality. The results indicated that the major producing areas were Lu’an, Anhui Province and Wenzhou, Taizhou in Zhejiang Province. In addition, the sweet flavor, short, thin and solid stems were standing for good quality. Based on the stable producing areas and quality descriptions, D. catenatum (D. officinale) (“Tiepi Shihu”) and D. houshanense were high quality medicinal Dendrobium species (“Shihu”) in ancient China. Besides, there were 3 scientific names for “Tiepi Shihu”, including D. candidum, D. officinale and D. catenatum. After textual investigation, we suggest that D. catenatum should be its scientific name, and D. officinale was synonym published later. However, the name “D. officinale” can be reserved as it is popular used in publication and commodities. Moreover, its Chinese name should be “Tiepi Shihu”.
Real world feature analysis was performed to investigate the combined medication with Qingkailing Injection in treating abnormal inflammatory factors such as elevated white blood cells (WBC) and C reactive protein (CRP). The patients of abnormal C reactive proteins and abnormal white blood cells treated with Qingkailing Injection were extracted from hospital information system ( HIS) of 16 Class 3A hospitals established by Institute of Basic Research in Clinical Medicine, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. Then the basic information, traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine diagnosis, prescription, and laboratory tests were analyzed. Apriori algorithm was used to construct the models and Clementine 12.0 for correlation analysis to analyze the clinical medication patterns and features of combined medication in patients with elevated WBC and CRP. The results showed that, when Qingkailing Injection was combined with one kind of western medicine or traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in treating patients with abnormal CRP, vitamin C (159 cases, 74.30%) and Tanreqing Injection (71 cases, 33. 18%) were the most frequently used. When combined with two kinds of TCM, Xueshuantong Injection plus Tanreqing Injection (support degree: 10.75%) were most frequently used. When Qingkailing Injection was combined with one kind of western medicine or TCM in treating patients with abnormal WBCs, vitamin C (596 cases, 56.02%) and Ganmao Qingre granules (247 cases, 23.21%) were the most frequently used. When combined with two kinds of TCM, Shuanghuanglian + Ganmao Qingre granules (support degree 5.26%) were the most frequently used. In the patients with abnormal CRP and WBCs, its combinations with antibiotics and nutritional support agents were most common from the pharmacological perspective, indicating that in treating abnormal CRP, WBCs and other increased inflammatory indicators, Qingkailing Injection was most frequently combined with antibiotic drugs to achieve synergistic effect.
