Therapeutic effects of polysaccharides from Anoectochilus roxburghii on type II collagen-induced arthritis in rats

Anoectochilus roxburghii, a famous Chinese herbal medicine, has been commonly used for the treatment of liver disease, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis. Our study aimed to investigate the anti-rheumatoid arthritis effects of A. roxburghii polysaccharides (ARP), using the rat's model of type II collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). ARP was prepared by alcohol sedimentation and structurally characterized based on combined chemical, chromatographic and spectroscopic methods. High Performance Size Exclusion Chromatography-Multiangle Laser Light Scattering-Refrative Index (HPSEC-MALLS-RI) analysis revealed that ARP includes two peaks, and the weight-average molecular weight (Mw) of the principal one was estimated as 5.90 kDa with a relative content of 98.2%. Pharmacological results exhibited that ARP significantly decreased the arthritis index and ameliorated the inflammatory cell infiltration and the synovial tissue destruction in CIA rats. Additionally, ARP possessed significant NO production inhibitory effects and antioxidant activity. Further anti-inflammatory mechanism investigations indicated that ARP significantly inhibited the activation of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) pathway by suppressing the phosphorylation of IκB and p65, which subsequently down-regulated the mRNA expressions of IL-1β and IL-6 in LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. These findings suggested that ARP has great potential in the development of functional foods and dietary supplements for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

Enhancement of fluorescence emission difference microscopy using conjugated vortex phase modulation

In this paper, we propose and demonstrate an improved fluorescence emission difference microscopy (FED) method, exploiting programmable phase modulation for image enhancement. The main novelty of the proposed approach lies in the matched size and intensity of two excitation spots. The proposed method improves the FED performance on image quality via artefact elimination. We demonstrate the feasibility of this method through theoretical studies and experimental tests. The experimental results of nanobeads and cells validate the practical performance of this method, which can enable reliable observations at superresolution in biomedical studies. LAY DESCRIPTION: In this paper, we propose a method to improve the imaging quality of regular fluorescence emission difference (FED) microscopy. In regular FED imaging, a solid and a doughnut excitation beam are successively used to acquire two images which are then subtracted with each other to improve the resolution of confocal microscopy. The doughnut beam can be generated by modulating the excitation beam with a vortex phase mask. Note that both of the excitation beam and the vortex phase mask must have the same handed direction in regular FED microscopy. However, some negative values may be produced and some information may be lost due to the subtraction process in regular FED imaging, which is mainly caused by the mismatched size and intensity of these two excitation spots. To address this issue, we propose conjugated FED (cFED) microscopy which additionally uses a conjugated vortex phase mask to modulate the solid beam to extend its focal spot size to be matched with the doughnut spot, which means the handed direction of the solid beam and the vortex phase mask is different. Besides, in order not to damage the resolution, the doughnut beam needs to be saturated to some degree. The experiment results show that, at the same resolution level, the negative values and the information loss in cFED image are all less than that of regular FED image.

Trichodermadiones A and B from the solid culture of Trichoderma atroviride S361, an endophytic fungus in Cephalotaxus fortunei

Chemical investigation on the solid rice culture of Trichoderma atroviride S361, an endophyte isolated from Cephalotaxus fortunei, has afforded a pair of novel N-furanone amide enantiomers, (-)-trichodermadione A (1a) and (+)-trichodermadione A (1b), and a new cyclohexenone sesquiterpenoid, trichodermadione B (2), together with six known secondary metabolites. Chiral separation of compound 1 was successfully performed on a Lux Cellulose-2 column. Their structures were elucidated by detailed spectroscopic analyses on the basis of NMR, HRMS, and ECD data, and the absolute configurations of the new compounds were determined by computational analyses of their electronic circular dichroism (ECD) spectra and Snatzke's method. Compounds 1a, 1b and 2 were also evaluated for their cytotoxicity against DU145 and PC3 cell lines, as well as inhibitory effects against the production of NO in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells.

Endophyte Chaetomium globosum D38 Promotes Bioactive Constituents Accumulation and Root Production in Salvia miltiorrhiza

Salvia miltiorrhiza is known for tanshinones and salvianolic acids, which have been shown to have a protective effect against ROS, especially for cardiovascular diseases and other various ailments of human organs. Due to the low yield of tanshinones and their analogs in S. miltiorrhiza, multiple stimulation strategies have been developed to improve tanshinones production in plant tissue cultures. Endophytic fungi have been reported to form different relationships with their host plants, including symbiotic, mutualistic, commensalistic, and parasitic interactions. Thus we take the assumption that endophytic fungi may be a potential microbial tool for secondary metabolism promotion in medicinal plants. We recently isolated Chaetomium globosum D38 from the roots of S. miltiorrhiza and our study aimed to examine the effects of this live endophytic fungus D38 and its elicitor on the accumulation of tanshinones in the hairy root cultures of S. miltiorrhiza. Our results revealed that C. globosum D38 mainly colonized in the intercellular gap of xylem parenchyma cells of S. miltiorrhiza hairy roots during the long term co-existence without any toxicity. Moreover, both of the live fungus and its mycelia extract could increase the production of tanshinones, especially for dihydrotanshinone I and cryptotanshinone. The effect of the mycelia extract was much stronger than that of the live fungus on tanshinones synthesis, which significantly increased the transcriptional activity of those key genes in tanshinone biosynthetic pathway. Furthermore, the live C. globosum D38 could also be made into biotic fertilizer used for S. miltiorrhiza seedlings culture, which not only significantly promoted the growth of the host plant, but also notably enhanced the accumulation of tanshinones and salvianolic acids. We thus speculated that, in the soil environment D38 could form bitrophic and mutual beneficial interactions with the host and enhance the plant growth and its secondary metabolism on the whole so as to have facilitative effects on both tanshinones and salvianolic acids accumulation. In conclusion, Chaetomium globosum D38 was a highly beneficial endophytic fungus for the growth and metabolism of S. miltiorrhiza.

Comparative Study for the Association of Mitochondrial Haplogroup F+ and Metabolic Syndrome between Longevity and Control Population in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China

BACKGROUND

Our previous study suggested that mitochondrial haplogroup F (mtDNA F) was a longevity-associated biomarker, but the effect of mitochondrial haplogroup F on longevity individuals with metabolic syndrome (MetS) was not clear. Thus we explored the association between mtDNA F and MetS among longevity and control population in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China.

METHOD

A total of 793 individuals consisting of 307 long-lived participants and 486 local healthy controls were involved in this study. Genotypes of mtDNA F were amplified by polymerase chain reaction and Sanger sequenced. MetS was defined according to the revised National Cholesterol Education Program's Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP ATPIII ) criteria.

RESULTS

The prevalence of MetS in longevity group (28.0%) was higher than that (18.5%) in control group (P=0.002). Through the case-control stratify analysis, the prevalence of MetS in mtDNA F+ longevity individuals (29.8%) was 4.6 fold higher than that (5.3%) in local control group (P<0.001). However, after further longevity-only analysis, no association between MetS and mtDNA F+ in longevity group was observed (P=0.167). Following same analysis of two variables in control group, we found that the prevalence of MetS in mtDNA F- (95.8%) was higher than that in mtDNA F+ (5.3%); conversely, the prevalence of non-metabolic syndrome (NMetS) in mtDNA F+ (94.7%) was markedly higher than that in mtDNA F- (4.2%) (P<0.001).

CONCLUSION

We demonstrated that mtDNA F+ , as a molecuar biomarker, might not only confer beneficial effect to resistance against MetS but also function as a positive factor for long-life span among the population in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China.