A ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS) method was successfully developed and validated for the identification and determination of eight alkaloids: tetrahydropalmatine (A); palmatine (B); magnoflorine (C); columbamine (D); berberine (E); worenine (F); berberrubine (G) and coptisine (H) in rat plasma, which are the active...

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease characterized by persistent hyperglycemia. High blood sugar can produce long-term complications such as cardiovascular and renal disorders, retinopathy, and poor blood flow. Its development can be prevented or delayed in people with impaired glucose tolerance by implementing lifestyle changes or the use of therapeutic agents. Some of these drugs h...

Objective. To illustrate the difference in cold/hot natural properties and therapeutic effect of coptis-evodia herb couples by using cold/hot plate differentiating technology and microcalorimetry combined with material basis analysis in vivo and in vitro. It showed that animal retention ratio in hot pad significantly decreased along with the decrease in coptis proportion in coptis-evodia herb c...

Inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) is a common treatment for early stages of the most general form of dementia, Alzheimer's Disease (AD). In this study, methanol, dichloromethane and aqueous crude extracts from 80 Traditional Chinese Medical (TCM) plants were tested for their in vitro anti-acetylcholinesterase activity based on Ellman's colorimetric assay. All three extracts of Berberis ...

A pressurized capillary electrochromatography (pCEC) method with post-column detection cell has been developed for the analysis of total alkaloids of cortex Phellodendron amurense Rupr., Rutaceae. The separation of total alkaloids (berberine, palmatine, oatrorrhizine, magnoflorine, phellodendrine, candicine, menisperine) was optimized by compositions of the mobile phase, ionic strength of buffe...

A high-throughput method was developed and applied to screen for the active antihepatic steatosis components within Coptidis Rhizoma Alkaloids Extract (CAE). This method was a combination of two previously described assays: HepG2 cell extraction with HPLC analysis and a free fatty acid-induced (FFA) hepatic steatosis HepG2 cell assay. Two alkaloids within CAE, berberine and coptisine, were iden...

The rapidly increasing diabetes mellitus (DM) is becoming a major global public health issue. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has a long history of the treatment of DM with good efficacy. Huangqi and Huanglian are one of the most frequently prescribed herbs for DM, and the combination of them occurs frequently in antidiabetic formulae. However, the synergistic mechanism of Huangqi (Radix Ast...

San-Huang-Xie-Xin-Tang (SHXXT), a widely used Chinese herbal formula, consists of rhizomes of Rheum officinale, roots of Scutellaria baicalensis and rhizomes of Coptis chinesis. This study investigated the metabolism and pharmacokinetics of polyphenols in SHXXT, including baicalin, baicalein, wogonin, emodin, aloe-emodin, rhein and chrysophanol. The quantitation methods of SHXXT decoction and r...

Corydalis Rhizoma is the dried tuber of Corydalis yanhusuo W.T. Wang which is used in traditional Chinese medicine for pain relief and blood activation. Before being used in the clinics, C. yanhusuo is traditionally processed through dry-frying or frying with vinegar, wine or salt. In this study, eleven alkaloids from Corydalis Rhizoma, namely protopine (1), α-allocryptopine (2), tetrahydrocolu...

Adulteration or substitution of commercial Berberis aristata and its herbal products with inferior-quality substituents is very common. Metabolic profiling of B. aristata, along with its common adulterants/contaminants/substituents such as B. asiatica, Mahonia borealis and Coscinium fenestratum, was rapidly carried out using direct analysis in real-time mass spectrometry (DART MS) to generate t...