No abstract

Root of Panax notoginseng (Sanqi in Chinese) is a highly valued and commonly used Chinese medicine. It has been widely used for treatment of cardio- and cerebro-vascular diseases. In this study, a method involving human platelet extraction and HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS/MS was developed for screening potential anti-platelet aggregation agents in Sanqi. Five compounds which could interact with human platelets were found, and four were identified as adenosine, guanosine, ginsenoside Rh1, and ginsenoside F1, respectively. The effects on rabbit platelet aggregation induced by arachidonic acid, adenosine diphosphate, and thrombin were also investigated in vitro. The results showed that the nucleosides adenosine and guanosine mainly contributed to the anti-platelet aggregation of Sanqi. The data suggest that human platelet extraction combined with HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS/MS is a useful method for screening anti-platelet aggregation agents from Chinese medicines.

Macroalgae have been recently used for different applications in the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry since they do not compete for land and freshwater against other resources. Moreover, they have been highlighted as a potential source of bioactive compounds. Red algae (Rhodophyta) are the largest group of seaweeds, including around 6000 different species, thus it can be hypothesized that they are a potential source of bioactive compounds. Sulfated polysaccharides, mainly agar and carrageenans, are the most relevant and exploited compounds of red algae. Other potential molecules are essential fatty acids, phycobiliproteins, vitamins, minerals, and other secondary metabolites. All these compounds have been demonstrated to exert several biological activities, among which antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antitumor, and antimicrobial properties can be highlighted. Nevertheless, these properties need to be further tested on in vivo experiments and go in-depth in the study of the mechanism of action of the specific molecules and the understanding of the structure–activity relation. At last, the extraction technologies are essential for the correct isolation of the molecules, in a cost-effective way, to facilitate the scale-up of the processes and their further application by the industry. This manuscript is aimed at describing the fundamental composition of red algae and their most studied biological properties to pave the way to the utilization of this underused resource.

No abstract

Selection of the agents for reducing water activity (a w ) of Brassica parachinensis with intermediate moisture contents (23.01% w.b.) and the storage stability at 4, 20, and 37 C using different packaging methods were studied. The a w -lowering agent for the dehydrated Brassica parachinensis with intermediate moisture was optimized: 8% glucose, 4% lactose, 2% sodium chloride, and 7.5% maltodextrin. Storage experiments showed that vacuum packaging or storage in darkness can reduce the loss of ascorbic acid and chlorophyll and delay the browning process. The overall quality of dehydrated Brassica parachinensis with intermediate moisture stored at 4 was better than at 20 and 37 C. Microbial analysis showed that an a w value of 0.69-0.70 was safe for dehydrated Brassica parachinensis with intermediate moisture.