J Pharm Biomed Anal. 2009 Mar 20; Wang XH, Xie PS, Lam CW, Yan YZ, Yu QXThe after-harvesting sun-dried process of Angelicae dahuricae radix (Chinese name: Baizhi) was previously the traditional treatment for commodity. Over recent decades the natural drying process for some fleshy roots or rhizomes of Chinese materia medica has been replaced by sulfur-fumigation for curtailing the drying duration and pest control. We used high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and high performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) fingerprinting analysis to investigate the potential damaging effect of the sulfur-fumigating process. The experimental conditions were as follows. HPTLC analysis was carried out on pre-coated silica-gel 60 plate, twice development was performed with two solvent systems (mobile phase) A, chloroform-ethyl acetate (10:1) and B, hexane-chloroform-ether (4:1:2); the fluorescent images were observed under UV 365nm. HPLC was preceeded on Zorbax SB-C(18) column; the linear gradient elution was conducted with mobile phase prepared from methanol-0.5% acetic acid; column temperature was at 25 degrees C; the detection wavelength was 250nm. We found serious degradation of the majority of coumarins in sulfur-fumigated Baizhi. The destructive effect was manifested by the defaced chromatographic profile and verified by imitating the sulfur dioxide reaction with the constituents in Baizhi in the laboratory. It is suggested that sulfur-fumigation process is an unacceptable approach for processing herbal drugs.

J Ethnopharmacol. 2009 Apr 16; Wang J, Zhao Y, Xiao X, Li H, Zhao H, Zhang P, Jin CAIM OF THE STUDY: Rhubarb is well-used to treat chronic renal failure(CRF) in China and Japan, but recent studies reported that the anthraquinone derivatives contained in rhubarb had nephrotoxicity. In this investigation an attempt was made to assess the value and toxic potential of rhubarb to treat CRF. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Histopathologic and biochemical tests combined with toxicokinetic analysis were performed to investigate the nephrotoxic potential and protective effect of rhubarb extract. RESULTS: In normal rat groups, no death was observed and no renal lesion was found after repetitive administration of rhubarb for 3 weeks. The survival rate, pathologic conditions and biochemical indexes of CRF rats treated with rhubarb at two dosages were all improved and significant amelioration was found in the low dosage group compared to the untreated CRF group. Rhein was the mainly absorbable anthraquinone derivative into systemic circulation after oral administration and the area under curve of rhein in CRF groups was lower than that in normal groups at same dosage. CONCLUSIONS: After 3 weeks of administration of rhubarb extract, there was evidence of protective effect to CRF rats, while incidences of hepatotoxicity with minimal to mild hyaline droplets were also observed in normal rats.

Zhongguo Zhong Yao Za Zhi. 2009 Jan; 34(2): 138-42Chen D, Li L, Peng R, Wu Y, Cai YOBJECTIVE: The genetic difference among Scrophularia ningpoensis cultivars were analyzed in molecular level. METHOD: Ninety-two individuls of three S. ningpoensis cultivars were employed to be analyzed by the approach of Sequence-related Amplified Polymorphism (SRAP).The parameters were calculated by POPGENE1.31 and the relationship was constructed based on UPGMA method. RESULT: 1) A total of 227 bands were scored and 199 bands of them were polymorphic. 2) The result is showed that there is a medium level of genetic diversity among three cultivars. At species level: percentage of polymorphic loci PPB=52.42%, effective number of alleles N(e)=1.2812, Nei's gene diversity H=0.1671 and Shannon's information index H(sp)= 0.2526; At cultivar level: PPB=21.44%, N(e)=1.1216, Nei's gene diversity H=0.0725 and Shannon's information index H(pop)= 0.1083. 3) The Nei's coefficient of genetic differentiation was 0.5625, which was consistent with the Shannon's coefficient of genetic differentiation (0.5713). Most of the genetic variation existed among cultivars. 4) The gene flow (N(m)=0.3889) was less among cultivars, indicating that the degree of genetic differentiation was higher. 5) Genetic similarity coefficient were changed from 0.8082 to 0.9133. By clustering analysis, the classified result of SRAP marker between traditional modal character was almost same. CONCLUSION: The genetic diversity of samples of S. ningpoensis is medium. The genetic difference among cultivar is higher than that within cultivar.

J Org Chem. 2009 Apr 21; Zhu K, He J, Li S, Liu M, Wang F, Zhang M, Abliz Z, Yang HB, Li N, Huang FTwo bis(m-phenylene)-32-crown-10 derivatives containing two pyridyl or carboxyl groups were made. They were used to prepare three bis(m-phenylene)-32-crown-10-based discrete rhomboids by coordination-driven self-assembly with high yields. The formation of these crown ether-based rhomboids was confirmed by NMR, UV-vis, CSI-TOF-MS, and elemental analysis. The complexation of these crown ether-based assemblies with paraquat (N,N'-dimethyl-4,4'-bipyridinium) was studied. The complexation of neutral bis(crown ether) rhomboid 1 with paraquat was found to be statistical with a 1:2 stoichiometry. The average apparent association constant K(av) of the complexation of rhomboid 1 with paraquat was found to be about 8.8(+/-0.8) x 10(3) M(-1) in acetone, about 17 times higher than the reported association constant value for the complexation of the corresponding simple bis(m-phenylene)-32-crown-10 with paraquat. This is possibly because the carboxylate groups provide additional noncovalent interactions between the host and guest. No obvious complexation was observed between the cationic rhomboids and paraquat when studied by NMR, UV-vis, and CSI-TOF-MS analysis. This could be attributed to the combination of the charge repulsion between cationic pyridinium rings and cationic platinum atoms and the weak pi-pi stacking and charge transfer interactions between the phenyl rings and the pyridinium rings caused by the electron-withdrawing effect of the cationic platinum atoms.