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 identify and verify the active ingredients from Radix Astragali on hypertension-related myocardial remodeling based on network pharmacology and heart RNA-sequencing data. The database of monomers of Radix Astragali and their intervention targets was established by using network pharmacology. The genes associated with myocardial remodeling were then screened by analyzing cardiac RNA-sequencing data. An overlap between genes related to myocardial remodeling and targets of ingredients form Radix Astragali was collected to obtain monomers with protective effect on hypertension-related myocardial remodeling. Angiotensin Ⅱ (AngⅡ)-induced mouse model with myocardial remodeling was used to validate the protective effect of active ingredients from Radix Astragali on hypertension-related myocardial remodeling. Finally, a total of 81 monomers and 1 197 targets were enrolled in our database. Mouse RNA-sequencing data showed that 983 genes were significantly up-regulated and 465 genes were down-regulated in myocardial tissue of mice with hypertension-related myocardial remodeling as compared with those in the blank group, respectively. Ninety-two genes were found via overlapping between genes related to myocardial remodeling and targets, involving 59 monomers from Radix Astragali. Further research revealed that vanillic acid (VA) could intervene in 27 genes associated with hypertension-related myocardial remodeling, ranking top 1. Meanwhile, VA could significantly inhibit AngⅡ-induced increases in ratio of heart weight to body weight, that of heart weight to tibial length, ANP and BNP mRNA levels in myocardial tissues, as well as myocardial tissue damage, cardiac fibrosis level and cardiac hypertrophy level in vivo. The network pharmacology-based screening has shown that VA has protective effects against AngⅡ-induced myocardial remodeling.
A new method on functional orientation of
Moringa leaves based on text mining and molecular docking was explored in the study. First, PubMedplus was used to analyze the research data on
Moringa leaves collected in PubMed and the indications of
Moringa leaves were screened along with the hotspots and development tendency of
Moringa leaves. Second, Arrowsmith was used to obtain the biological targets of
Moringa leaves. Third, the active candidate components of
Moringa leaves were filtered by SwissADME analyzing on the chemical data collected from literature. Subsequently, the molecular docking between active candidate component and target was studied by systemsDock to forecast the potential active components and their possible effective targets, and GO functional annotation of the potential targets was performed by DAVID database. According to the results, tumor, diabetes and digestive diseases were suggested to be indications of
Moringa leaves, correlated with 25 active components and 12 potential effective targets possibly by adjusting G protein-coupled receptor and affecting on inflammatory reaction. The new method on functional orientation by combining text mining with molecular docking was successfully practiced on
Moringa leaves as a case study, which provided a useful reference for the utilization of foreign medicinal resources.
To assess the clinical efficacies of traditional Chinese medicine injections for adjuvant treatment of mycoplasma pneumonia (MP) in children by NMA method. The databases including China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, Chinese BioMedical Literature Database (CBM), Cochrane Library, and PubMed were searched from their inception to September 2018. Two reviewers independently screened out articles, extracted data and assessed the methodological quality of included studies. The data were analyzed by Stata 13. 0 software. Totally 89 RCTs were included, involving eight traditional Chinese medical injections and 8 936 patients. According to the results of NMA, these eight traditional Chinese medicine injections for the treatment of MP were sorted in a descending order based on the total effective rate as follows: Huangqi Injection > Xiyanping Injection > Tanreqing Injection > Compound Danshen Injection > Reduning Injection > Yanhuning Injection > Qingkailing Injection > Xixinnao Injection; these eight traditional Chinese medicine injections for the treatment of MP were sorted in a descending order based on the antifebrile time as follows: Reduning Injection > Yanhuning Injection > Qingkailing Injection > Tanreqing Injection > Huangqi Injection > Xiyanping Injection > Xixinnao Injection > Compound Danshen Injection; these eight traditional Chinese medicine injections for the treatment of MP were sorted in a descending order based on cough disappearing time as follows: Compound Danshen Injection > Qingkailing Injection > Xiyanping Injection > Huangqi Injection > Yanhuning Injection > Reduning Injection > Tanreqing Injection > Xixinnao Injection; the seven traditional Chinese medicine injections for the treatment of MP were sorted in a descending order based on rale disappearing time as follows: Qingkailing Injection > Yanhuning Injection > Reduning Injection > Huangqi Injection > Tanreqing Injection > Xiyanping Injection > Xixinnao Injection. The results showed that the traditional Chinese medicine injections had significant clinical efficacies in the adjuvant treatment of various symptoms of MP in children. Due to the small sample size, more studies are required to verify the strength of evidence.
Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-high field orbital trap mass spectrometry (UPLC-Orbitrap Elite-MS/MS) method was applied in this paper to analyze the metabolites of 4,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid in rat plasma and urine after oral administration. Gradient elution was performed by using Thermo C
18 column (2.1 mm × 100 mm, 1.9 μm), with 0.1% aqueous formic acid-acetonitrile as the mobile phase. Mass spectral data of the biological samples were collected in negative ion mode, and were extracted by Compound Discovery 2.1 software. Then the blank group samples and the drug samples were compared for exact molecular mass and mass fragmentation information, and the secondary fragment fitting ratio was calculated to finally attribute the metabolites. As a result, 15 metabolites were detected in the rat plasma, and 16 metabolites were detected in the rat urine. The metabolic reactions involved included methylation, hydration, dehydration, reduction, glucuronide conjugation, and sulfation reactions. The metabolites in the plasma and urine complemented each other, which initially revealed the migration and excretion patterns of this compound in the body. Methods for pre-processing biological samples, data acquisition with high-resolution LC-MS instrument, and qualitative software for identifying the metabolite structures were established in this study, laying a foundation for the future study of the active ingredients and in vivo pharmacodynamic forms of Chinese medicines.
Pinellia ternata belongs to the Araceae family and is a medicinal herb. Its tuber is the medicinal organ with antitussive, antiemetic and anti-tumor activities. However, it is easy to encounter high temperature environment during its growth periods, leading to decrease in tuber production. At present, the mechanism of response to high temperature stress in
P.
ternata is still unknown. DNA methylation plays a vital role in plant protection against adversity stress as a way of epigenetic regulation. In this study,
P.
ternata was used as the material for treatment of high temperature stress at 0 h, 6 h and 80 h, and methylation sensitive amplification polymorphism (MSAP) analysis was conducted on the changes of DNA methylation in its genome. The results showed that 20 pairs of MSAP primers were selected from 100 MSAP primers with multiple clear and uniform bands, and 353, 355 and 342 loci were amplified from the materials of
P.
ternata treated in the high temperature stress of 0 h, 6 h and 80 h, respectively. The cytosine methylation levels of CCGG context in the above materials were characterized as 60.91%, 44.79% and 44.74%, respectively. And the fully-methylated rates were 16.71%, 22.25% and 29.24, respectively. It demonstrated that high temperature stress significantly induced the down-regulation of DNA methylation level and up-regulation of the fully-methylated rate in
P.
ternata genome. This study provides a preliminary theoretical reference for analyzing the mechanism of
P.
ternata responding to high temperature stress from the epigenetic perspective.
In this study, the texture analyzer acupuncture pressure sensor was used to objectively characterize the “herb soaking with exact amount of water” for moistening process of Radix Ginseng. The univariate rotation experiment was used to investigate the effects of puncture speed, puncture depth and puncture site on puncture force and work. According to the Radix Ginseng processing method in
Chinese Pharmacopoeia, Radix Ginseng with diameters of about 1 cm and 2 cm were selected, and puncture experiments were carried out at the set measurement time to determine the hardness, work and water absorption of the Radix Ginseng moistening process. The endpoint threshold for the Radix Ginseng softening process was determined and verified. To reflect the actual internal conditions of the Radix Ginseng softening process, the puncture depth was preferably 70%, and the puncture speed was 30 mm·min
−1. In the Radix Ginseng moistening process, the softening hardness and the puncture work were in accordance with the first-order kinetic equation
y =
a × exp (−
k ×
x). The 0 h initial hardness
a of 1 cm and 2 cm Radix Ginseng was 289.8 N and 1 227 N, and the rate constants
K were 0.149 4 N·h
−1 and 0.100 7 N·h
−1, respectively. After the Radix Ginseng was completely softened, the force required for puncture was 10 N, which can be used as the standard for “drug puncture”. At this time, the water absorption rate of Radix Ginseng was 70%–100%. The softening time of Radix Ginseng with a diameter of 1 cm was about 20–22 h, and the softening time of Radix Ginseng with a diameter of 2 cm was about 40–46 h. A needle-type pressure sensor was used to accurately determine the end point of the softening process of Radix Ginseng and reduce the loss of active ingredients. The study results provide reference for the softening process kinetics and the process intelligent monitoring of other dried roots and rhizomes.
Eight compounds were isolated from the ethyl acetate extract of
Prunus mume by column chromatography. On the basis of physicochemical properties and spectrum analysis, these compounds were identified as isoquercitrin-6″-
O-benzoate (
1), pinoresinol (
2), naringin (
3), ethyl-
β-D-glucopyranoside (
4), astragalin (
5), quercetin (
6), hypericin (
7), and rutin (
8). Among them, compound
1 was a new natural product, and compounds
2–
5 were isolated from this plant for the first time. In in vitro study, compounds
1, 3, and
5–
8 significantly increased the survival rate of SH-SY5Y cells.
To analyze the registered clinical trial protocols of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for the prevention and treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), in order to provide information for improving the quality of research design. The website of the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (www.chictr.org.cn) and the U.S. National Library of Medicine (clinicaltrials.gov) were searched to collect protocols of TCM for COVID-19. Documents were screened following the inclusion criteria, and data were extracted in regard to registration date, study objective, study type, sponsor, patient, sample size, intervention, and evaluation index. Descriptive analysis was conducted. A total of 49 clinical trial protocols of TCM for COVID-19 were included. Primary sponsors were mainly hospitals or universities in places like Hubei, Beijing, Zhejiang and other areas. The implementation units are mainly in Hubei, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Henan and other regional hospitals. The types of study design were mainly experimental studies (40), including 30 parallels, 7 non-randomized controls, 2 single arm trials and 1 sequential study; besides, there were also 6 observational studies, 2 health service studies and 1 prevention study. The sample size was 30 562 cases in total, with maximum of 20 000 for a single study and minimum of 30. The subjects of 49 trials included healthy people (3), isolated and observed cases (1), suspected cases (10), confirmed COVID-19 patients (31) and COVID-19 recovery patients (4). Of the 31 trials planned to include confirmed COVID-19 patients, 16 protocols had no definite disease classification; three excluded severe subjects and four included general subjects; two included mild, general or severe subjects and one included mild and general subjects; one included general or severe subjects and three included severe subjects; one included severe or critical subjects. The experimental interventions included Chinese patent medicine (LianHua QingWen Capsule, Patchouli Qi-Righting Drop Pill/Oral Liquid, Eight-Ingredient Pills, Exterior-Strengthening Detoxification Prescription, Jinhao Heat-Clearing Granule, Compound Herba Houttuyniae Mixture, los Lonicerae-Folium Isatidis Toxin-Vanquishing Granule, Wind-Dispersing Toxin-Removing Capsule, Flos Lonicerae-Radix Scutellaria-Fructus Forsythiae Oral Liquid, Phlegm Heat-Clearing Injection, Xuebijing Injection, Reduning Injection, Xiyanping Injection), Chinese medicinal decoction and Chinese shadow boxing. The primary evaluation outcomes mainly included antipyretic time, clinical symptom relief, novel coronavirus nucleic acid turning to negative, conversion rate of severe cases and chest CT. There was a quick response of clinical research on the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 with TCM, with the current registered protocols cover the whole process of disease prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. However, issues need to be concerned, including unclear definition of patient’s condition, unclear research objectives, unclear intervention process and inappropriate outcomes. In addition, researchers should consider the actual difficulties and workload of doctors in epidemic response environment, and make effort to optimize the process and improve the operability of research protocols under the principle of medical ethics.
