Infrared (IR) spectroscopy combined with chemometrics has been developed for simple analysis of flavonoid in the medicinal plant extract. Flavonoid was extracted from medicinal plant leaves by ultrasonication and maceration. IR spectra of selected medicinal plant extract were correlated with flavonoid content using chemometrics. The chemometric method used for calibration analysis was Partial Last Square (PLS) and the methods used for classification analysis were Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Soft Independent Modelling of Class Analogies (SIMCA), and Support Vector Machines (SVM). In this study, the calibration of NIR model that showed best calibration with R 2 and RMSEC value was 0.9916499 and 2.1521897, respectively, while the accuracy of all classification models (LDA, SIMCA, and SVM) was 100%. R 2 and RMSEC of calibration of FTIR model were 0.8653689 and 8.8958149, respectively, while the accuracy of LDA, SIMCA, and SVM was 86.0%, 91.2%, and 77.3%, respectively. PLS and LDA of NIR models were further used to predict unknown flavonoid content in commercial samples. Using these models, the significance of flavonoid content that has been measured by NIR and UV-Vis spectrophotometry was evaluated with paired samples t-test. The flavonoid content that has been measured with both methods gave no significant difference.

The aim of this study is to investigate the combination treatments of paclitaxel and chitosan-Dendrophthoe pentandra leaves extract nanoparticles (NPDP) on MCF-7 breast cancer cells. Chitosan-NPDP nanoparticles were characterized by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and assessed by using immunofluorescence microscopy. MCF-7 cells are cultured and divided into six groups: group 1 was a negative control (without paclitaxel or NPDP); group 2 was treated with paclitaxel alone; groups 3-5 were treated with NPDP (2, 4, and 8 mg/mL, respectively) and group 6 was treated only by 8 mg/mL of chitosan-NPDP nanoparticles. The proliferation and cell cycle were analyzed by flow cytometry and the expression of TUBB3 and MAP4 were assessed by immunofluorescence microscopy. The combinations of paclitaxel-NPDP significantly inhibit proliferation of cells (P<0.001) and it is able to induce G2/M cell cycle arrest (P<0.001). The combination of paclitaxel-NPDP significantly decreases the expressions of TUBB3 (P<0.001) and MAP4 (P<0.001) in MCF-7 cells. These results indicate that the combination of NPDP nanoparticles could reduce the expressions of TUBB3 and MAP4. This research may provide possible sources of new therapy for NPDP.

The prevalence of obesity in China is currently one of the lowest in the world, but it is increasing, particularly in urban areas. The incidence of obesity in China is approximately four to five times lower than in the UK and USA respectively. Several dietary studies have found that dietary fat consumption in China is lower than in Western countries, but is currently increasing. In addition, Chinese in more affluent countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, and Chinese immigrants in the USA are consuming greater amounts of dietary fat than Chinese in China. This increased intake of fat in Chinese is probably due to transition from the traditional Chinese eating patterns to those typical of Westerners. The change in overall dietary intake is likely to have an impact on obesity, health and economy of these nations. This is an appropriate time to examine the relationship between diet and obesity with special reference to Chinese communities in different parts of the world.