Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Ren Xiang Tan.
China is a country rich in plants and microbe species that cultivate a remarkable diversity of secondary metabolites. Such products include 'qinghaosu' (artemisinin) and huperzine A, which are used in the treatment of malaria and Alzheimer's disease, respectively.
This review focuses on new endophyte-related findings in biology and ecology, and also summarises the various metabolites isolated from endophytes.
This work was to characterize the generation of nitric oxide (NO) in Taxus yunnanensis cells exposed to low-energy ultrasound (US) and the signal role of NO in elicitation of plant defense responses and secondary metabolite accumulation. The US sonication (3.5-55.6 mW/cm(3) at 40 kHz fixed frequency) for 2 min induced a rapid and dose-dependent NO production in the Taxus cell culture, which exhibited a biphasic time course, reaching the first plateau within 1.5 h and the second within 7 h after US sonication. The NO donor sodium nitroprusside (SNP) potentiated US-induced H(2)O(2) production and cell death. Inhibition of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity by N(omega)-nitro-L-arginine (L-NNA) or scavenging NO by 2-phenyl-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-imidazoline-1-oxyl-3-oxyde (PTIO) partially blocked the US-induced H(2)O(2) production and cell death. Moreover, the NO inhibitors suppressed US-induced activation of phenylalanine ammonium-lyase (PAL) and accumulation of diterpenoid taxanes (Taxol and baccatin III). These results suggest that NO plays a signal role in the US-induced responses and secondary metabolism activities in the Taxus cells.
Hopeanolin (1), an unusual resveratral trimer with an ortho-quinone nucleus, was isolated and characterized from the stem bark of Hopea exalata. Also obtained were six known stibenoids, shoreaphenol (2), vaticanol G (3), alpha-viniferin (4), pauciflorol A (5), vaticanol A (6), and trans-3,5,4'-trihydroxystilbene 2-C-glucoside (7). The structure of 1 was determined by spectroscopic data interpretation. Compounds 1-7 were tested for antifungal activity and inhibitory effects against jack bean urease. Hopeanolin (1) demonstrated antifungal activity in the MIC value range 0.1-22.5 microg/mL.
In Salvia miltiorrhiza hairy root cultures, the desired secondary metabolites diterpenoid tanshinones are normally produced at low yields and stored within the roots. To enhance tanshinone production and the secondary product recovery, we employed three means, elicitation with a yeast elicitor (YE), in situ adsorption of tanshinones with a hydrophobic polymeric resin (X-5) and semi-continuous mode of operation. YE treatment stimulated the tanshinone biosynthesis, increasing the total tanshinone (TT) content of root by about two-fold, from 0.46 to 1.37 mg/g dry weight (dw) (TT content=total content of three major tanshinones, cryptotanshinone, tanshinone I and tanshinone IIA). The addition of X-5 resins to the culture only increased the tanshinone yield slightly, but recovered more than 80% of tanshinones from the roots. With the application of a semi-continuous culture process involving repeated medium renewal, elicitor addition and resin replacement, starting at the late exponential growth phase, the root biomass was increased to 30.5g dw/l (versus 8-10g dw/l in batch mode) and the volumetric tanshinone yield to 87.5mg/l (about 15-fold increase), with 76.5% adsorbed to the resin. The volumetric productivity of total tanshinone reached 1.46 mg/lday, more than 7.4 times that of the batch culture. The results demonstrate that the integration of multiple elicitation, in situ adsorption and semi-continuous operation can synergistically enhance tanshinone production in S. miltiorrhiza hairy root cultures.
Infection by Helicobacter pylori has been ascertained to be an important etiologic impetus leading usually to chronic active gastritis and gastric ulcer with growing incidences worldwide. Utilizing as the test pathogen a standard and five clinic strains of Helicobacter pylori, the antibacterial action was assessed in vitro with ethanol extracts of 30 Chinese herbal medicines which have been frequently prescribed since ancient times for treating gastritis-like disorders. Among the 30 tested materials, the ethanol extracts of Abrus cantoniensis (Fabaceae), Saussurea lappa (Asteraceae) and Eugenia caryophyllata (Myrtaceae) were strongly inhibitory to all test strains (MICs: approximately 40 microg/ml), and Hippophae rhamnoides (Elaeagnaceae), Fritillaria thunbergii (Liliaceae), Magnolia officinalis and Schisandra chinensis (Magnoliaceae), Corydalis yanhusuo (Papaveraceae), Citrus reticulata (Rutaceae), Bupleurum chinense and Ligusticum chuanxiong (Apiaceae) substantially active with MICs close to 60.0 microg/ml. As to antibacterial actions of the aqueous extracts of the same drugs, those derived from Cassia obtusifolia (Fabaceae), Fritillaria thunbergii and Eugenia caryophyllata were remarkably inhibitory against all the six Helicobacter pylori strains (MICs: approximately 60 microg/ml). The work compared almost quantitatively the magnitude of the anti-Helicobacter pylori actions of the 30 most prescribed gastritis-treating Chinese herbal drugs, and located as well some source plants where potent anti-Helicobacter pylori phytochemicals could be characterized.
A new compound, named buddlin (1), was isolated from the whole plant of Buddleja asiatica. Its structure was elucidated from spectral evidence.
The calcium pectinate (CaP) capsule, a novel, colon-specific delivery system, was designed and developed using 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) as a model drug. Technically, CaP capsules were prepared by dipping a glass or stainless steel rod successively into pectin and calcium chloride solutions, followed by subsequent air-drying and coating. In vitro studies showed that the release of 5-FU from CaP capsules markedly increased in the presence of rat cecal contents, and the release characteristic was mainly associated with some capsule parameters such as calcium content, shell thickness, and coat amount. Gamma scintigraphic studies demonstrated that CaP capsules could pass through the stomach and small intestine intact and could release drug in colon. The 5-FU releasing characteristics acquired both from in vitro biomimic dissolution experiments and from healthy volunteers indicated that the newly developed CaP capsule possessed the ideal colon-specific drug delivery characteristic.
The extracts derived from cultures of 1626 endophytic strains harbored in Trachelospermum jasminoides were assayed for more potent antioxidant and/or free radical-scavenging agents. The free radical-scavenging assessment was carried out using l,l-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and hydroxyl radical assays, and the antioxidant actions on linoleic acid and human low-density lipoprotein (LDL) models. After extensive spectroscopic analyses, graphislactone A was characterized as the most bioactive secondary metabolite of endophytic Cephalosporium sp. IFB-E001 with its free radical-scavenging (in a dose-dependent manner) and antioxidant activities ascertained in vitro to be stronger than those of butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and ascorbic acid, the two positive references coassayed in the study. From the demonstrated efficacy of graphislactone A in preventing and protecting against oxidative injury, it can be predicted that this metabolite could be a potential agent in the management of oxidative damage-initiated diseases.
Plantago asiatica, Scrophularia ningpoensis and Ilex pubescens are among the traditional Chinese medicines which are more frequently prescribed for treating depression-like ailments in the past and present traditional Chinese medical practice. The present work was therefore conducted to evaluate the presumable antidepressant effects of the extracts derived from the three remedies in mice using the learned helplessness model being used for screening for antidepressant compounds in modern medicinal researches. As a result, the petroleum extracts of Plantago asiatica and Ilex pubescens as well as the EtOAc extract of Scrophularia ningpoensis and the petroleum-soluble fraction of the acidic hydrolysate of the water extract of Ilex pubescens (after petroleum extraction) decreased significantly the number of escape failures relative to the control. The finding rationalized the clinical prescription of the herbs for the treatment of depression, and shined a clue for the characterization of the antidepressant phytochemical(s).
Four new cytotoxic disulfides, rostratins A-D (1-4), were isolated from the whole broth of the marine-derived fungus Exserohilum rostratum (Drechsler), a fungal strain found associated with a marine cyanobacterial mat. The structures of these cyclic dipeptides were established through chemical degradation and a variety of two-dimensional NMR techniques. The absolute configurations of the rostratins were determined by the modified Mosher method. In the case of the polyhydroxylated compound 1 and the mercaptol 4, regioselective acylation was achieved by modulating the reaction temperature while monitoring the progress of the reaction by 1H NMR. Rostratins A, B, C, and D showed in vitro cytotoxicity against human colon carcinoma (HCT-116) with IC50 values of 8.5, 1.9, 0.76, and 16.5 microg/mL, respectively.