An assessment of the potential of protopine to inhibit microsomal drug metabolising enzymes and prevent chemical-induced hepatotoxicity in rodents

The composition, pharmacological effects, related mechanisms and drug delivery of alkaloids from Corydalis yanhusuo

Corydalis yanhusuo W. T. Wang, also known as yanhusuo, yuanhu, yanhu and xuanhu, is one of the herb components of many Chinese Traditional Medicine prescriptions such as Jin Ling Zi San and Yuanhu-Zhitong priscription. C. yanhusuo was traditionally used to relieve pain and motivate blood and Qi circulation. Now there has been growing interest in pharmacological effects of alkaloids, the main bioactive components of C. yanhusuo. Eighty-four alkaloids isolated from C. yanhusuo are its important bioactive components and can be characterized into protoberberine alkaloids, aporphine alkaloids, opiate alkaloids and others and proper extraction or co-administration methods modulate their contents and efficacy. Alkaloids from C. yanhusuo have various pharmacological effects on the nervous system, cardiovascular system, cancer and others through multiple molecular mechanisms such as modulating neurotransmitters, ion channels, gut microbiota, HPA axis and signaling pathways and are potential treatments for many diseases. Plenty of novel drug delivery methods such as autologous red blood cells, self-microemulsifying drug delivery systems, nanoparticles and others have also been investigated to better exert the effects of alkaloids from C. yanhusuo. This review summarized the alkaloid components of C. yanhusuo, their pharmacological effects and mechanisms, and methods of drug delivery to lay a foundation for future investigations.

Antidepressant alkaloids from the rhizomes of Corydalis decumbens

Two new alkaloids (1 and 2), named 1,7-dimethoxy-2'-prenyl-1',9-dihydropyrrolo-carbazole (1) and 1,7-dimethoxy-4',5'-dimethylcyclopenta-carbazole-1',3'-dione (2), along with thirteen known alkaloids (3-15) were isolated by means of silica gel, sephadex LH-20, and semi-preparative HPLC from the CHCl₃ extraction of Corydalis decumbens for the first time. Their structures were determined by NMR, MS, IR, UV, and related references. Compounds (1-15) were evaluated for their antidepressant activities by measuring inhibition of monoamine neurotransmitter reuptake in vitro. Among them, compounds 1, 2, 4, and 6 showed certain antidepressant activities.

Identification and Quantification, Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacological Activities, and Botanical Preparations of Protopine: A Review

Through pharmacological activity research, an increasing number of natural products and their derivatives are being recognized for their therapeutic value. In recent years, studies have been conducted on Corydalis yanhusuo W.T. Wang, a valuable medicinal herb listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. Protopine, one of its components, has also become a research hotspot. To illustrate the identification, metabolism, and broad pharmacological activity of protopine and the botanical preparations containing it for further scientific studies and clinical applications, an in-depth and detailed review of protopine is required. We collected data on the identification and quantification, metabolism and pharmacokinetics, pharmacological activities, and botanical preparations of protopine from 1986 to 2021 from the PubMed database using “protopine” as a keyword. It has been shown that protopine as an active ingredient of many botanical preparations can be rapidly screened and quantified by a large number of methods (such as the LC-ESI-MS/MS and the TLC/GC-MS), and the possible metabolic pathways of protopine in vivo have been proposed. In addition, protopine possesses a wide range of pharmacological activities such as anti-inflammatory, anti-platelet aggregation, anti-cancer, analgesic, vasodilatory, anticholinesterase, anti-addictive, anticonvulsant, antipathogenic, antioxidant, hepatoprotective, neuroprotective, and cytotoxic and anti-proliferative activities. In this paper, the identification and quantification, metabolism and pharmacokinetics, pharmacological activities, and botanical preparations of protopine are reviewed in detail to lay a foundation for further scientific research and clinical applications of protopine.

Therapeutic Potential of Plants and Plant Derived Phytochemicals against Acetaminophen-Induced Liver Injury

Acetaminophen (APAP), which is also known as paracetamol or N-acetyl-p-aminophenol is a safe and potent drug for fever, pain and inflammation when used at its normal therapeutic doses. It is available as over-the-counter drug and used by all the age groups. The overdose results in acute liver failure that often requires liver transplantation. Current clinical therapy for APAP-induced liver toxicity is the administration of N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), a sulphydryl compound an approved drug which acts by replenishing cellular glutathione (GSH) stores in the liver. Over the past five decades, several studies indicate that the safety and efficacy of herbal extracts or plant derived compounds that are used either as monotherapy or as an adjunct therapy along with conventional medicines for hepatotoxicity have shown favorable responses. Phytochemicals mitigate necrotic cell death and protect against APAP-induced liver toxicityby restoring cellular antioxidant defense system, limiting oxidative stress and subsequently protecting mitochondrial dysfunction and inflammation. Recent experimental evidences indicat that these phytochemicals also regulate differential gene expression to modulate various cellular pathways that are implicated in cellular protection. Therefore, in this review, we highlight the role of the phytochemicals, which are shown to be efficacious in clinically relevant APAP-induced hepatotoxicity experimental models. In this review, we have made comprehensive attempt to delineate the molecular mechanism and the cellular targets that are modulated by the phytochemicals to mediate the cytoprotective effect against APAP-induced hepatotoxicity. In this review, we have also defined the challenges and scope of phytochemicals to be developed as drugs to target APAP-induced hepatotoxicity.

Simultaneous determination of seven alkaloids in rat plasma by UFLC-MS/MS and its application to a pharmacokinetic study after oral administration of Cerebralcare Granule

An ultra fast liquid chromatography-tandem mass sepectrometry (UFLC-MS/MS) method was developed for simultaneous determination of seven active alkaloid components (tetrahydropalmatine, corydaline, α-allocryptopine, tetrahydroberberine, tetrahydrocoptisine, tetrahydrocolumbamine and dehydrocorydaline) in rat plasma after oral administration of Cerebralcare Granule. Plasma samples were pretreated by protein precipitation with acetronitrile containing the internal standard diazepam. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a Phenomenex Kinetex C18 column (100×2.1mm, 2.6μm) with gradient elution using mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile -0.1% formic acid in water at a flow rate of 0.3mL/min. The detection was performed on an electrospray ionization triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) with positive ionization mode. The established method was fully validated and proved to be sensitive and specific with lower limits of quantification (LLOQs) all less than 0.0265ng/mL in rat plasma. Good linearities of seven alkaloids were obtained in respective concentration ranges (r>0.9923). The intra- and inter-day precisions were below of 15% for all the seven alkaloids in terms of relative standard deviation (RSD), and the accuracies were ranged from -2.7% to 8.3% in terms of relative error (RE). Extraction recovery, matrix effect and stability were within the required limits in rat plasma. The validated method was successfully applied to investigate the pharmacokinetics of the seven alkaloids in rat plasma after oral administration of Cerebralcare Granule (CG).

The electrochemical behaviors of tetrahydropalmatine at a nickel nanoparticles/sulfonated graphene sheets modified glassy carbon electrode

A novel electrochemical sensor was fabricated to determine THP under optimum conditions, with a considerable repeatability, stability and sensitivity. This method has a similar recovery and RSD compared with HPLC.

Protopine inhibits heterotypic cell adhesion in MDA-MB-231 cells through down-regulation of multi-adhesive factors

BACKGROUND

A Chinese herb Corydalis yanhusuo W.T. Wang that showed anticancer and anti-angiogenesis effects in our previous studies was presented for further studies. In the present study, we studied the anticancer proliferation and adhesion effects of five alkaloids which were isolated from Corydalis yanhusuo.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

MTT dose response curves, cell migration assay, cell invasion assay, as well as three types of cell adhesive assay were performed on MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells. The mechanism of the compounds on inhibiting heterotypic cell adhesion were further explored by determining the expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), Intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1), αv-integrin, β1-integrin and β5-integrin by western blotting assay.

RESULTS

In five tested alkaloids, only protopine exhibited anti-adhesive and anti-invasion effects in MDA-MB-231 cells, which contributed to the anti-metastasis effect of Corydalis yanhusuo. The results showed that after treatment with protopine for 90 min, the expression of EGFR, ICAM-1, αv-integrin, β1-integrin and β5-integrin were remarkably reduced.

CONCLUSION

The present results suggest that protopine seems to inhibit the heterotypic cell adhesion between MDA-MB-231 cells, and human umbilical vein endothelial cells by changing the expression of adhesive factors.

Fluorescence spectral analysis for the discrimination of complex, similar mixtures with the aid of chemometrics

An analytical method for the classification of complex real-world samples was researched and developed with the use of excitation-emission fluorescence matrix (EEFM) spectroscopy, using the medicinal herbs, Rhizoma corydalis decumbentis (RCD) and Rhizoma corydalis (RC) as example samples. The data set was obtained from various authentic RCD-A and RC-A, adulterated AD, and commercial RCD-C and RC-C samples. The spectra (range: λ(ex) = 215∼395 nm and λ(em) = 290∼560 nm), arranged in two- and three-way data matrix formats, were processed using principal component analysis (PCA) and parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) to produce two-dimensional component-by-component plots for qualitative data classification. The RCD-A and RC-A object groups were clearly discriminated, but the AD and the RCD-C as well as RC-C samples were less well separated. PARAFAC analysis produced somewhat better discrimination, and loadings plots revealed the presence of the marker compound Protopine-a strongly fluorescing substance-as well as at least two other unidentified fluorescent components. Classification performance of the common K-nearest neighbors (KNN) and linear discrimination analysis (LDA) methods was relatively poor when compared with that of the back propagation- and radial basis function-artificial neural networks (BP-ANN and RBF-ANN) models on the basis of two- and three-way formatted data. The best results were obtained with the three-way fingerprints and the RBF-ANN model. Subsequently, the quality of the commercial samples (RCD-C and RC-C) was classified on the best optimized RBF-ANN model. Thus, EEFM spectroscopy, which provides three-way measured data, is potentially a powerful analytical technique for the analysis of complex real-world substances provided the classification is performed by the RBF-ANN or similar ANN methods.

On the Synthesis of Protopine Alkaloids

For the synthesis of protopine alkaloids, we studied a reaction sequence based on a ring enlargement of indeno[2,1-a][3]benzazepines by a singlet oxygen oxygenation, followed by conversion of an amide carbonyl group of the resultant 10-membered keto-lactam to a methylene group, which is the last step for completion of the synthesis. The key substances, indeno[2,1-a][3]benzazepines, were prepared by Bischler-Napieralski cyclization of alkoxy-substituted 1-(2-bromobenzyl)-3-benzazepin-2-ones. Steric effects of the substituents in this synthesis were examined.

Protopine inhibits serotonin transporter and noradrenaline transporter and has the antidepressant-like effect in mice models

The protopine isolated from a Chinese herb Dactylicapnos scandens Hutch was identified as an inhibitor of both serotonin transporter and noradrenaline transporter in vitro assays. 5-hydroxy-DL-tryptophan(5-HTP)-induced head twitch response (HTR) and tail suspension test were adopted to study whether protopine has anti-depression effect in mice using reference antidepressant fluoxetine and desipramine as positive controls. In HTR test, protopine at doses of 5, 10, 20 mg/kg dose dependently increase the number of 5-HTP-induced HTR. Protopine at doses of 3.75 mg/kg, 7.5 mg/kg and 30 mg/kg also produces a dose-dependent reduction in immobility in the tail suspension test. The present results open up new possibilities for the use of protopine in the treatment of mood disorders, such as mild and moderate states of depression.