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
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is developing rapidly and posing a serious threat to public health. There is no effective intervention for the severe patients, and their prognosis is poor. It is worth noting that in the fight against COVID-19, China has always put equal emphasis on both traditional Chinese and western medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has played an important role in the whole process. It is of great significance to discuss the rules and characteristics of TCM prescriptions for COVID-19. In this study, information was collected from 444 severe COVID-19 patients who were admitted to a designated hospital in Wuhan before March 20, 2020. We collected the TCM prescriptions for them, referred to
Chinese Pharmacopoeia (
Zhong Guo Yao Dian) to standardize the names of Chinese medicinals, and extracted the properties, flavors, and meridian tropism of them to analyze the medication regularity of the prescriptions. IBM SPSS Modeler 18.0 software was employed to conduct correlation analysis of Chinese medicinals and discover effective TCM prescriptions against COVID-19 by the TCMATCOV platform. In the end, 1 532 effective prescriptions were included. Among them, the high-frequency medicinals were Poria, Radix Astragali seu Hedysari, Herba Pogostemonis, Semen Armeniacae Amarum, Rhizoma Atractylodis Macrocephalae, Rhizoma Pinelliae, Radix Glycyrrhizae, Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis, Herba Ephedrae, and Ramulus Cinnamomi. Most of the medicinals have the functions of resolving dampness, replenishing deficiency, resolving phlegm, and relieving cough and asthma. The core combinations were Herba Pogostemonis–Poria, Radix Astragali seu Hedysari–Herba Pogostemonis–Poria, Fructus Amomi Villosi–Poria, Fructus Amomi Villosi–Herba Pogostemonis, and Fructus Amomi Villosi–Radix Astragali seu Hedysari. The medicinals cold and warm in property accounted for 41.03% and 38.46%, respectively, and those sweet and bitter in taste took up 34.71% and 30.58%, respectively. The medicinals showed meridian tropism in lung, stomach, and spleen, and those showing tropisim in lung accounted for 22.87%. According to the analysis result of high-frequency medicinals and core combinations, the main treatment principle for severe COVID-19 is to remove internal and external dampness, protect the spleen and stomach, eliminate pathogen, and reinforce healthy qi. TCMATCOV platform was used to calculate the network disturbances of the high-frequency medicinals involved. It was found that the Chinese medicinals with a high disturbance score accounted for a large proportion of the classic anti-COVID-19 prescriptions used by clinicians. Among them, the medicinals of top scores were Herba Ephedrae, Pericarpium Citri Reticulatae, Herba Eupatorii, Radix Platycodonis, Ramulus Cinnamomi, Radix Astragali seu Hedysari, Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis, Rhizoma Atractylodis Macrocephalae, Herba Pogostemonis, and Radix Scutellariae. After further exploring the action targets, we found that the COVID-19-specific factor TNF was the target of the ten medicinals, and Chinese medicinals can exert anti-inflammatory and immune-modulating effects at multiple targets and levels.
Glucomannan is the key active ingredient of
Dendrobium catenatum, and
CSLA family is responsible for glucomannan biosynthesis. In order to systematically evaluate the
CSLA family members of
D.
catenatum, the bioinformatics methods were performed for genome-wide identification of
DcCSLA gene family members through the genomic data of
D.
catenatum downloaded from the NCBI database, and their phylogenetic relationship, gene structure, protein conserved domains and motifs, promoter cis-elements and gene expression profiles in response to stresses were further analyzed. The results showed that
D.
catenatum contained 13
CSLA members, all of which contained 9–10 exons. In the evolutionary relationship,
CSLA genes were clustered into 5 groups, and
DcCSLA genes were distributed in all branches. The ancestral genes of group Ⅰ existed before the monocot-dicot divergence, and groups Ⅱ–Ⅴ only existed in the monocot plants, indicating that group Ⅰ represents the earliest origin group. CSLA proteins were the characteristic of the signature CESA_CaSu_A2 domain. Their promoter regions contained
cis-elements related to stresses and hormones. Under different stress treatments, low temperature induced the expression of
DcCSLA5 and inhibited the expression of
DcCSLA3. Infection of
Sclerotium delphinii inhibited
DcCSLA3/4/6/8/9/10 expression. Under the treatment of jasmonic acid, the
DcCSLA11 expression was significantly up-regulated, and
DcCSLA2/5/7/12/13 were significantly down-regulated. These results laid a foundation for further study on the function of
DcCSLA genes in glucomannan biosynthesis and accumulation.
To observe the efficacy of cinnamaldehyde on dextran sulfate sodium(DSS)-induced ulcerative colitis(UC) with
Can-
dida albicans(Ca) colonization and its effect on dectin-1/TLRs/NF-κB signaling pathway in mice. C57 BL/6 mice were randomly divided into normal group, DSS group, DSS+Ca group, cinnamaldehyde group and mesalazine group. Mice in DSS+Ca group were given Ca(1×10
8 CFU per mouse) through intragastrical administration for 4 consecutive days and then distilled water with 3.0% DSS for 7 consecutive days. In cinnamaldehyde group and mesalazine group, in addition to the induction method of the DSS+Ca group, mice were given 75 mg·kg
-1 cinnamaldehyde and 200 mg·kg
-1 mesalazine accompanied with 3.0% DSS for 7 consecutive days, respectively. Mice in normal group and DSS group were correspondingly administered with distilled water. The general conditions of the mice were observed daily, the diseased activity index(DAI) score was calculated, and fungal loads of feces were detected by plate method. The mice were sacrificed on day 12, colon length was measured, colon mucosa damage index(CMDI) score was calculated, and histopathological analysis was carried out by HE staining. Anti-saccharomces cerevisiae antibody(ASCA) and
β-1,3-glucan in serum, and TNF-
α, IL-1
β, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10 in serum and colon tissue were detected by ELISA. The contents of
β-1,3-glucan and macrophage infiltration in colon tissues were examined by immunofluorescence staining. The protein expressions of dectin-1, TLR2, TLR4 and NF-κB were detected by Western blot and immunohistochemistry staining. The results showed that cinnamaldehyde could significantly improve the general conditions of UC mice with Ca colonization, decrease DAI and histopathological scores, reduce intestinal mucosal congestion, erosion and colon shortening, decrease Ca load in mouse feces and tissues, down-regulate the contents of ASCA and
β-1,3-glucan in serum, reduce the contents of TNF-
α, IL-1
β, IL-6, IL-8 and increase IL-10 in serum and colon tissues, inhibit macrophages infiltration and down-regulate the protein expression of dectin-1, TLR2, TLR4 and NF-κB in colon tissue. These results suggested that cinnamaldehyde had a therapeutic effect on UC mice with Ca colonization, which might be related to the inhibition of Ca proliferation, the regulation of dectin-1/TLRs/NF-κB signaling pathways and the coordination of the balance between pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory factors.
Phytochemical investigation on the methanol extract of Mastic (
Pistacia lentiscus) by using various chromatographic techniques led to the isolation of nine compounds. Based on the analysis of spectroscopic data (NMR and MS) and/or comparisons with the data reported in the literature, their structures were elucidated as 3
β,8
α,13-trihydroxypolypoda-14-methoxy-14-methyl-17,21-diene (
1), 4-hydroxymyrtenal (
2), 3-methyl-6-(prop-1-en-2-yl)cyclohex-3-ene-1,2-diol (
3), 2-oxo-
Δ3-4,5,5-trimethylcyclopentynyl acidic acid (
4), (1
S,2
R,3
R,5
R)-6,6-dimethyl-4-methylidenebicyclo[3.1.1]-heptane-2,3-diol (
5), (4
R)-1-methyl-4-(1-hydroxyisopropyl)cyclohexene-6-one (
6), 6,6-dimethyl-4-hydroxy[3.1.1]hept-2-ene-2-carboxylic acid (
7), 6,6-dimethyl[3.1.1]hept-2-ene-2-carboxylic acid (
8), 6,6-dimethyl-4-oxobicyclo[3.1.1]hept-2-ene-2-carboxylic acid (
9). Compound
1 was a new compound and compounds
2-
9 were isolated from this species for the first time. In vitro cytotoxicity assay results indicated that compounds
1, 6 and
7 showed significant inhibitory effects against human lung cancer cell line A549 with IC
50 values of 20.4, 25.1 and 22.5 μmoL·L
−1.
Inhibition of bitterness is a significant measure to improve patients’ compliance and the clinical efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) decoction. According to the characteristics of TCM decoction, such as high dispersion of bitter components, multi-component bitterness superposition, and strong instantaneous stimulation, the research group put forward a new strategy to inhibit bitterness in the early stage based on the self-assembly characteristics of amphiphilic substances in aqueous solution, in order to reduce the distribution of bitter components in real solution and achieve the purpose of bitter-masking. It was found that the bitter-masking effect of amphiphilic substances was different on the bitter compounds of various structures. Therefore, it was inferred that there might be a certain relationship between the bitterness inhibition effect and the substrate structure. In this paper, the interaction between mPEG-PLLA and five bitter alkaloids (palmatine, jatrorrhizine, berberine, epiberberine, and coptisine) in Coptidis Rhizoma was studied to explore the effect of substrate structure on the inhibition of bitterness. The sensory test of volunteers was used to determine the bitter-masking effect of mPEG-PLLA on Coptidis Rhizoma decoction and its main bitter alkaloids. The molecular docking and molecular force field were applied to locate the bitter groups and the bitter-masking parts. The relationship between the bitter strength and the structure was analyzed by the surface electrostatic potential of the bitter alkaloids, and the correlation between the bitter-masking effect and the structural parameters of the bitter components was explored by factor analysis, so as to clarify the structure-activity relationship of mPEG-PLLA in masking the bitterness of coptis alkaloids. It was found that mPEG-PLLA had significant taste masking effect on Coptidis Rhizoma decoction and the five alkaloids. The masking effect was obviously related to the structure of different alkaloids: the effect increased with the increase of the number of hydrogen donors, rotatable bonds, molecular weight, and hydrophobicity, and decreased with the increase of surface electrostatic potential, electrophilicity, and binding energy with bitter receptors. In this study, the influence of alkaloid structure of Coptidis Rhizoma on the bitter-masking effect of mPEG-PLLA was preliminarily elucidated, providing a scientific basis for better exerting the bitter-masking effect of amphiphilic block copolymers.
