Baicalin and rutin are major constituents in Shuanghuanglian injection involving anaphylactoid reaction

Pseudo-allergic reactions induced by Chinese medicine injections: a review

Traditional Chinese medicine injections (TCMIs) is a new dosage form of Chinese medicine, which plays a unique role in rescuing patients with critical illnesses that are difficult to replace. With the rapid development and widespread application of TCMIs in recent years, their adverse events have emerged and attracted much attention. Among them, pseudo-allergic reactions, i.e., the most significant adverse reactions occurring with the first dose without immunoglobulin E mediated conditions. Currently, studies on the types of TCMIs and antibiotic mechanisms that cause pseudo-allergic reactions are incomplete, and standard models and technical guidelines for assessing TCMIs have not been established. First, this review describes the causes of pseudo-allergic reactions, in which the components and structures responsible for pseudo-allergic reactions are summarized. Second, the mechanisms by which pseudo-allergic reactions are discussed, including direct stimulation of mast cells and complement activation. Then, research models of pseudo-allergic reaction diseases are reviewed, including animal models and cellular models. Finally, the outlook and future challenges for the development of pseudo-allergic reactions in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) are outlined. This shed new light on the assessment and risk prevention of pseudo-allergic reactions in TCM and the prevention of clinical adverse reactions in TCM.

Feature Selection Assists BLSTM for the Ultrasensitive Detection of Bioflavonoids in Different Biological Matrices Based on the 3D Fluorescence Spectra of Gold Nanoclusters

Rapid and on-site qualitative and quantitative analysis of small molecules (including bioflavonoids) in biofluids are of great importance in biomedical applications. Herein, we have developed two deep learning models based on the 3D fluorescence spectra of gold nanoclusters as a single probe for rapid qualitative and quantitative analysis of eight bioflavonoids in serum. The results proved the efficiency and stability of the random forest-bidirectional long short-term memory (RF-BLSTM) model, which was used only with the most important features after deleting the unimportant features that might hinder the performance of the model in identifying the selected bioflavonoids in serum at very low concentrations. The optimized model achieves excellent overall accuracy (98-100%) in the qualitative analysis of the selected bioflavonoids. Next, the optimized model was transferred to quantify the selected bioflavonoids in serum at nanoscale concentrations. The transferred model achieved excellent accuracy, and the overall determination coefficient (R²) value range was 99-100%. Furthermore, the optimized model achieved excellent accuracies in other applications, including multiplex detection in serum and model applicability in urine. Also, LOD in serum at nanoscale concentration was considered. Therefore, this approach opens the window for qualitative and quantitative analysis of small molecules in biofluids at nanoscale concentrations, which may help in the rapid inclusion of sensor arrays in biomedical and other applications.

Mitochondrial toxicity evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine injections with a dual in vitro approach

There are technical obstacles in the safety evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) injections due to their complex chemical nature and the lack of rapid and accurate in vitro methods. Here, we established a dual in vitro mitochondrial toxicity approach combing the conventional "glucose/galactose" assay in HepG2 cells with the cytotoxic assay in mitochondrial respiration deficient cells. Using this dual in vitro approach, for the first time, we systematically assessed the mitochondrial toxicity of TCM injections. Four of the 35 TCM injections, including Xiyanping, Dengzhanhuasu, Shuanghuanglian, and Yinzhihuang, significantly reduced cellular ATP production in galactose medium in the first assay, and presented less cytotoxic in the respiration deficient cells in the second assay, indicating that they have mitochondrial toxicity. Furthermore, we identified scutellarin, rutin, phillyrin, and baicalin could be the potential mitochondrial toxic ingredients in the 4 TCM injections by combining molecular docking analysis with experimental validation. Collectively, the dual in vitro approach is worth applying to the safety evaluation of more TCM products, and mitochondrial toxic TCM injections and ingredients found in this study deserve more attention.