Chemical analysis of the Chinese herbal medicine Gan-Cao (licorice)

Recent analytical approaches in quality control of traditional Chinese medicines—A review

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common cause of liver-related morbidity and mortality disease in the world. However, no effective pharmacological treatment for NAFLD has been found. In this study, we used a high fat diet (HFD)-induced NAFLD model to investigate hepatoprotective effect of apigenin (API) against NAFLD and further explored its potential mechanism. Our results demonstrated that gavage administration of API could mitigate HFD-induced liver injury, enhance insulin sensitivity and markedly reduce lipid accumulation in HFD-fed mice livers. In addition, histological analysis showed that hepatic steatosis and macrophages recruitment in the API treatment group were recovered compared with mice fed with HFD alone. Importantly, API could reverse the HFD-induced activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, further reduced inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-18 release, accompanied with the inhibition of xanthine oxidase (XO) activity and the reduction of uric acid and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. The pharmacological role of API was further confirmed using free fatty acid (FFA) induced cell NAFLD model. Taking together, our results demonstrated that API could protect against HFD-induced NAFLD by ameliorating hepatic lipid accumulation and inflammation. These protective effects may be partially attributed to the regulation of XO by API, which further modulated NLRP3 inflammasome activation and inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-18 release. Therefore API is a potential therapeutic agent for the prevention of NAFLD.

Apigenin ameliorates HFD-induced NAFLD through regulation of the XO/NLRP3 pathways.

Negatively charged ions are an integral part of our ecosystem, where at certain concentrations (fixed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and World Health Organization (WHO)), they are non-toxic. However, with an increase or decrease in their concentration due to pollution, industrialization, etc., anions show harmful effects. Therefore, the detection of anions with high sensitivity and selectivity is necessary, which is challenging. In the past few years, various fluorescence-based sensory materials have been developed to detect anions in the solution, solid, and vapor phases through various mechanisms. Significant undertakings are in progress to develop fluorescent materials with high sensitivity, selectivity, and fast response time. This review article starts with the various sensing mechanisms for fluorescence-based anion detection. Subsequently, the fluorescent sensory materials for anion detection are widely and efficiently summarized, focusing on the last 10 years of investigation. The focus of this review is to present a broad scope of fluorescent materials, for example, supramolecular systems, polymeric chemosensors, small molecules, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), and aggregation-induced emissive materials, and their associated mechanisms and applications. Also, an outline of the reported fluorescent materials and their mechanism, anion detection, low detection limit (LOD), and applications are presented in a table format.

Fluorescence-based sensors as an emerging tool for anion detection: mechanism, sensory materials and applications

Precursor ion scan enhanced rapid identification of the chemical constituents of Danhong injection by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry: An integrated strategy.

A novel multi-hyphenated analytical method to simultaneously determine xanthine oxidase inhibitors and superoxide anion scavengers in natural products.

Bo-Yang Yu

Papers

A novel multi-hyphenated analytical method to simultaneously determine xanthine oxidase inhibitors and superoxide anion scavengers in natural products.

A strategy for the metabolomics-based screening of active constituents and quality consistency control for natural medicinal substance toad venom.

Determination of glycyrrhizin in Chinese prescriptions and biological samples by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay