The flower of Trollius chinensis Bunge was widely used for the treatment of inflammation-related diseases in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). In order to clarify the anti-inflammatory mechanism of this Chinese herbs, a comprehensive network pharmacology strategy that consists of three sequential modules (pharmacophore matching, enrichment analysis and molecular docking.) was carried out. As a result, Apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 (ASK1), Janus kinase 1 (JAK1), c-Jun N-terminal kinases (JNKs), transforming protein p21 (HRas) and mitogen-activated protein kinase 14 (p38α) that related to the anti-inflammatory effect were filtered out. In further molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, the conformation of CID21578038 and CID20055288 were found stable in the protein ASK1 and JNKs respectively. The current investigation revealed that two effective compounds in the flower of Trollius chinensis Bunge played a crucial role in the process of inflammation by targeting ASK1 and JNKs, the comprehensive strategy can serve as a universal method to guide in illuminating the mechanism of the prescription of traditional Chinese medicine by identifying the pathways or targets.

Background: Topiroxostat is an excellent xanthine oxidase (XO) inhibitor, possessing a specific 3,5-diaryl-1,2,4-triazole framework. Objective: The present work was aimed to investigate the preliminary structure-activity relationship (SAR) of 2-cyanopyridine-4-yl-like fragments of topiroxostat analogues. Methods: A series of 5-benzyl-3-pyridyl-1H-1,2,4-triazole derivatives (1a-j and 2a-j) were designed and synthesized by replacement of the 2-cyanopyridine-4-yl moiety with substituted benzyl groups. XO inhibitory activity in vitro was evaluated. Furthermore, molecular modeling simulations were performed to predict the possible interactions between the synthesized compounds and XO binding pocket. Results: The SARs analysis demonstrated that 3,5-diaryl-1,2,4-triazole framework is not essential; in spite of its lower potency, 5-benzyl-3-pyridyl-1H-1,2,4-triazole is an acceptable scaffold for XO inhibitory activity to some extent. A 3′-nitro and a 4′-sec-butoxy group link to the benzyl moiety will be welcome. Furthermore, the most promising compound, 1h, was identified with an IC50 value of 0.16 μM, and the basis of XO inhibition by 1h was rationalized through the aid of molecular modelling studies. Conclusion: Compound 1h could be a lead compound for further investigation and the present work may provide some insight into the search for more structurally diverse XO inhibitors with topiroxostat as a prototype.

A combined in silico method was developed to predict potential protein targets that are involved in cardiotoxicity induced by aconitine alkaloids and to study the quantitative structure–toxicity relationship (QSTR) of these compounds. For the prediction research, a Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) network was built from the extraction of useful information about protein interactions connected with aconitine cardiotoxicity, based on nearly a decade of literature and the STRING database. The software Cytoscape and the PharmMapper server were utilized to screen for essential proteins in the constructed network. The Calcium-Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinase II alpha (CAMK2A) and gamma (CAMK2G) were identified as potential targets. To obtain a deeper insight on the relationship between the toxicity and the structure of aconitine alkaloids, the present study utilized QSAR models built in Sybyl software that possess internal robustness and external high predictions. The molecular dynamics simulation carried out here have demonstrated that aconitine alkaloids possess binding stability for the receptor CAMK2G. In conclusion, this comprehensive method will serve as a tool for following a structural modification of the aconitine alkaloids and lead to a better insight into the cardiotoxicity induced by the compounds that have similar structures to its derivatives.

As a novel monoterpenoid indole alkaloid, gardneramine has been confirmed to possess excellent nervous depressive effects. However, there have been no reports about the measurement of gardneramine in vitro and in vivo. The motivation of this study was to establish and validate a specific, sensitive, and robust analytical method based on UHPLC-MS/MS for quantification of gardneramine in rat plasma and various tissues after intravenous administration. The analyte was extracted from plasma and tissue samples by protein precipitation with methanol using theophylline as an internal standard (I.S.). The analytes were separated on an Agilent ZORBAX Eclipse Plus C18 column using a gradient elution of acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid in water at a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. Gardneramine and I.S. were detected and quantified using positive electrospray ionization in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode with transitions of m/z 413.1→217.9 for gardneramine and m/z 181.2→124.1 for I.S. Perfect linearity range was 1–2000 ng/mL with a correlation coefficient (r2) of ≥0.990. The lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) of 1.0 ng/mL was adequate for application to different preclinical studies. The method was successfully applied for determination of gardneramine in bio-samples.