A mass defect filtering combined background subtraction strategy for rapid screening and identification of metabolites in rat plasma after oral administration of Yindan Xinnaotong soft capsule

The absorbed prototypes and metabolites of traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) serves an important part in pharmacological action and clinical effects. However, the comprehensive characterization of which is facing actual or possible rigorous challenges due to the lack of data mining methods and the complexity of metabolite samples. Yindan Xinnaotong soft capsule (YDXNT), a typical traditional Chinese medicine prescription consisting of extracts from 8 herbal medicines, is widely used for the treatment of angina pectoris and ischemic stroke in the clinic. This study established a systematic data mining strategy based on ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem quadrupole-time-of-fight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF MS) for comprehensive metabolite profiling of YDXNT in rat plasma after oral administration. The multi-level feature ion filtration strategy was primarily conducted through the full scan MS data of plasma samples. All potential metabolites were rapidly fileted out from the endogenous background interference based on the background subtract and the chemical type specifically mass defect filter (MDF) windows including flavonoids, ginkgolides, phenolic acids, saponins, and tanshinones. As the MDF windows of certain types were overlapped, the screened-out potential metabolites were deeply characterized and identified according to their retention times (RT), integrating neutral loss filtering (NLF), diagnostic fragment ions filtering (DFIF), and further confirmed by reference standards. Thus, a total of 122 compounds, consisting of 29 prototype components (16 confirmed with reference standards) and 93 metabolites had been identified. This study provides a rapid and robust metabolite profiling method for researching complicated traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions.

Investigation of neomycin biodegradation conditions using ericoid mycorrhizal and white rot fungal species

BACKGROUND

In the search for methods to biodegrade recalcitrant compounds, the use of saprotrophic fungi and white rot fungi, in particular belonging to the phylum Basidiomycota, has gained interest. This group of fungi possesses a battery of unspecific extracellular enzymes that can be utilized in the biodegradation of preferably phenolic compounds. In this work, it was investigated under which conditions the white rot fungus Trametes versicolor and the ericoid mycorrhizal fungus Rhizoscyphus ericae (belonging to the phylum Ascomycota) could be used to biodegrade the antibiotic aminoglycoside neomycin at co-metabolic conditions in which external nutrients were supplied. Furthermore, it was also investigated whether a biodegradation could be accomplished using neomycin as the sole nutrient.

RESULTS

The results show that both species can biodegrade neomycin 70% under co-metabolic conditions during a one-week time course and that Rhizoscyphus ericae is able to use neomycin as sole nutrient and to approximatively biodegrade it 60% under chosen non co-metabolic conditions. At selected conditions, the biodegradation of neomycin using Rhizoscyphus ericae was monitored by oxidation products of D-ribose which is a hydrolysis product of neomycin.

CONCLUSION

The results are of general interest in the search for fungal species that can biodegrade recalcitrant compounds without the need of external nutrients. The key future application area that will be investigated is purification of waste from recombinant protein production in which neomycin, nutrients and E. coli with neomycin resistance genes are present.

Neomycin removal using the white rot fungus Trametes versicolor

The presence of antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), and in river and lake recipients show the need to develop new antibiotic removal strategies. The aminoglycoside antibiotic class is of special concern since the chemical structure of these compounds limits the choices of removal technologies. The experimental design included fungal mediated in vivo and in vitro experiments. The experiments were performed in Erlenmeyer flasks under non-sterile conditions. In the study, the role of the laccase redox mediator 4-hydroxy benzoic acid (HBA) in the removal of neomycin was investigated. The specific objective of the study was to conclude whether it is possible to use the white rot fungus (WRF) Trametes versicolor to biodegrade neomycin. It was shown that it is feasible to remove 34% neomycin in vitro (excluding living fungal cells) by laccase-HBA mediated extracellular biodegradation. In the in vivo experiments, polyurethane foam (PUF) was used as supporting material to immobilize fungal mycelia on. The presence of living fungal cells facilitated a removal of approximately 80% neomycin in the absence of HBA. Using liquid chromatography-high resolution-mass spectrometry, it was possible to tentatively identify oxidation products of neomycin hydrolysates. The results in this study open up the possibility to implement a pretreatment plant (PTP) aimed for neomycin removal.

Yaobitong capsules reshape and rebalance the gut microbiota and metabolites of arthritic rats: An integrated study of microbiome and fecal metabolomics analysis

Yaobitong capsule (YBTC), a Chinese medicine compound preparation, has been demonstrated to affect multiple pathways associated with inflammation and exhibit potential anti-arthritis effect. In this study, an integrated omic approach based on UHPLC-Q-TOF MS and 16S rRNA sequencing analyses was proposed to reveal the anti-arthritis effect and possible mechanism of YBTC. The AIA rat model showed that YBTC significantly alleviated the typical symptoms of AIA rats such as weight, spleen index and pro-inflammatory cytokines. Fecal metabolomics results identified 41 differential metabolites, which mainly referred to tryptophan, bile acid and fatty acid metabolism. The gut microbiota played a crucially important role in anti-inflammatory immunity, 16S rRNA results indicated that YBTC changed the community structure and alleviated the microecological imbalance caused by rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Further ROC curve analysis demonstrated that it was reliable to identify RA by using 5 metabolites and 3 microorganisms (AUC > 0.83). In summary, it was the first time that the preventive effect of YBTC in RA was confirmed. The secretion of the microbiota-mediated metabolites was significantly improved by YBTC, through its callback effect on the disturbed gut microbiota. Thus, we have indicated a potential novel strategy for the prevention of RA via evaluation of intervention effects of YBTC on AIA rat model.

Comparative metabolism study on chlorogenic acid, cryptochlorogenic acid and neochlorogenic acid using UHPLC-Q-TOF MS coupled with network pharmacology

Chlorogenic acid (5-CQA), neochlorogenic acid (3-CQA), and cryptochlorogenic acid (4-CQA), usually simultaneously exist in many traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs). However, insufficient attentions have been paid to the comparative metabolism study on these three isomeric constituents with similar effects on anti-inflammation until now. In this study, a novel strategy was established to perform comparative analysis of their metabolic fates in rats and elucidate the pharmacological mechanism of anti-inflammation. Firstly, diagnostic product ions (DPIs) deduced from the representative reference standards were adopted to rapidly screen and characterize the metabolites in rat plasma, urine and faeces using UHPLC-Q-TOF MS. Subsequently, Network pharmacology was utilized to elucidate their anti-inflammatory mechanism. Consequently, a total of 73 metabolites were detected and characterized, including 50, 47 and 43 metabolites for 5-CQA, 4-CQA and 3-CQA, orderly. Moreover, the network pharmacology study indicated that these three isomeric constituents and their major metabolites with similar in vivo metabolic pathways exerted anti-inflammatory effects through co-owned 20 biological processes, which involved 10 major signal pathways and 159 potential targets. Our study shed light on the similarities and differences of the metabolic profiling and anti-inflammatory activity among these three isomeric constituents and set an example for the further researches on the active mechanism of isomeric constituents existing in TCMs based on comparative metabolism study.

An integrated strategy for revealing the pharmacological changes based on metabolites profiling and network pharmacology: Arctiin as an example

Traditional Chinese medicine was widely used in China since its definite effects and therapy. The components of TCM were absorbed into the circle system as the format of prototypes or metabolites, which contributed to the therapy or side effects. Declaring the functional changes in this process was of great importance to the clinical applications. In this work, an integrated strategy based on metabolites' profiling and network pharmacology was proposed for exploring the pharmacological changes of compounds in vivo. Arctiin, the main component in Fructus Arctii with various kinds of bioactivities, was used as an example. An ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry and metabolynx™software was applied to characterize the metabolites of arctiin in rats at a dosage of 100 mg/kg; network pharmacology was applied to characterize the functional changes. As a result, fifty-three metabolites (32 in plasma, 40 in urine, 19 in bile, 20 in feces, 1 in brain, 12 in liver and 4 in lungs) were screened out and characterized, and 3 of them were unambitiously identified by comparison with standard substances. Among them, 38 metabolites were reported for the first time. It was found the major metabolic pathways of arctiin in rats were demethylation, lactone-opening and phase II conjugations with sulfate and glucuronide.It also confirmed that M14, M15, M18, M23, M22, M43 and M45 were the major circulating forms of arctiin in rats following oral administration. In addition to the above metabolic reactions, phase I reactions of hydrolysis, demethylation, dehydroxylation were also observed, and dehydrogenation were first revealed metabolic patterns of arctiin in rats. Meanwhile, in addition to the main targets of arctiin (MTOR, EGFR and MAPK14), its metabolites targeted additional 392 targets with additional functions of anti-hepatitis B or viral carcinogenesis (SRC, CAPS3, PIK3CA, CDK4, ESR1, MMP9 and ERBB2). The above results provided very important information for understanding the metabolism and functional changes of arctiinin vivo, and supporting data for further pharmacological evaluation. Our work also provided a newsight for elucidation of functional changes of TCMs in vivo.

Removal of diclofenac from a non-sterile aqueous system using Trametes versicolor with an emphasis on adsorption and biodegradation mechanisms

This paper describes the search for procedures through which the xenobiotic pollutant diclofenac can be removed from non-sterile aquatic systems. Specifically, adsorption to solid supports (carriers) in combination with biodegradation by non-immobilized and immobilized white rot fungus Trametes versicolor were investigated. Batch experiments using polyurethane foam (PUF)-carriers resulted in 99.9% diclofenac removal after 4 h, with monolayer adsorption of diclofenac to carrier and glass surfaces accounting for most of the diclofenac decrease. Enzymatic reactions contributed less, accounting for approximately < 0.5% of this decrease. In bioreactor experiments using PUF-carriers, an initial 100% removal was achieved with biodegradation contributing approximately 7%. In batch experiments that utilized polyethylene-carriers with negligible immobilization of Trametes versicolor, a 98% total diclofenac removal was achieved after one week, with a biodegradation contribution of approximately 14%. Five novel enzyme-catalyzed biodegradation products were tentatively identified in the batch-wise and bioreactor experiments using full scan ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole/time of flight mass spectrometry. Both reduction and oxidation products were found, with the contents estimated to be at µg L^-1 concentration levels.

Metabolites of curculigoside in rats and their antiosteoporotic activities in osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells

Curculigoside isolated from Curculiginis Rhizoma exhibits a wide spectrum of bioactivities. In this study, a high performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of- flight tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC/Q-TOF MS) method was employed to investigate the metabolism of curculigoside in rats. Plasma, bile, urine, feces and 17 tissues were collected from rats after a single PO dose of curculigoside at 100mg/kg and prepared through methanol precipitation. Parent compound and a total of 7 metabolites were detected and identified based on their retention time and fragment ions. Metabolic pathways of curculigoside in rats include hydrolysis, demethylation and glucuronidation. Exposure of major metabolite M2 in plasma and it's antiosteoporotic activity in osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells were studied to help understand that curculigoside assimilates less but works more.