Diabetes mellitus is a global epidemic with major impacts on human health and society. Drug discovery for diabetes can be facilitated by the development of a rapid, vertebrate-based screen for identifying new insulin mimetic compounds. Our study describes the first development of a zebrafish-based system based on direct monitoring of glucose flux and validated for identifying novel anti-diabetic drugs. Our system utilizes a fluorescent-tagged glucose probe in an experimentally convenient 96-well plate format. To validate our new system, we identified compounds that can induce glucose uptake via activity-guided fractionation of the inner shell from the Japanese Chestnut (Castanea crenata). The best performing compound, UP3.2, was identified as fraxidin and validated as a novel insulin mimetic using a mammalian adipocyte system. Additional screening using sets of saponin- and triazine-based compounds was undertaken to further validate this assay, which led to the discovery of triazine PP-II-A03 as a novel insulin mimetic. Moreover, we demonstrate that our zebrafish-based system allows concomitant toxicological analysis of anti-diabetic drug candidates. Thus, we have developed a rapid and inexpensive vertebrate model that can enhance diabetes drug discovery by preselecting hits from chemical library screens, before testing in relatively expensive rodent assays.

Results from the present study suggested that to minimize the settling effect, abutment screws should be retightened at least twice at 30 N cm torque at a 10-min interval in all laboratory and clinical procedures.

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Glycolytic enzymes are attractive anticancer targets. They also carry out numerous, nonglycolytic "moonlighting" functions in cells. In this study, we investigated the anticancer activity of the triazine small molecule, GAPDS, that targets the glycolytic enzyme glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH). GAPDS showed greater toxicity against cancer cells compared to a known GAPDH enzyme inhibitor. GAPDS also selectively inhibited cell migration and invasion. Our analysis showed that GAPDS treatment reduced GAPDH levels in the cytoplasm, which would modulate the secondary, moonlighting functions of this enzyme. We then used GAPDS as a probe to demonstrate that a moonlighting function of GAPDH is tubulin regulation, which may explain its anti-invasive properties. We also observed that GAPDS has potent anticancer activity in vivo. Our study indicates that strategies to target the secondary functions of anticancer candidates may yield potent therapeutics and useful chemical probes.

Abnormalities in skin pigmentation can produce disorders such as albinism or melasma. There is a research need to discover novel compounds that safely and effectively regulate pigmentation. To identify novel modulators of pigmentation, we attempted to purify compounds from a bioactive fraction of the Korean medicinal plant Artemisia capillaris Thunberg. The novel compound isofraxidin 7-O-(6′-O-p-coumaroyl)-β-glucopyranoside (compound 1) was isolated and its pigmentation activity was characterized in mammalian melanocytes. Compound 1 stimulated melanin accumulation and increased tyrosinase activity, which regulates melanin synthesis. Moreover, compound 1 increased the expression of tyrosinase and the key melanogenesis regulator microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) in melanocytes. Compared to the parent compound, isofraxidin, compound 1 produced greater effects on these pigmentation parameters. To validate compound 1 as a novel hyperpigmentation agent in vivo, we utilized the zebrafish vertebrate model. Zebrafish treated with compound 1 showed higher melanogenesis and increased tyrosinase activity. Compound 1 treated embryos had no developmental defects and displayed normal cardiac function, indicating that this compound enhanced pigmentation without producing toxicity. In summary, our results describe the characterization of novel natural product compound 1 and its bioactivity as a pigmentation enhancer, demonstrating its potential as a therapeutic to treat hypopigmentation disorders.

Preliminary microbial metabolism studies of bisphenol A (BPA) (1) on twenty six microorganisms have shown that Aspergillus fumigatus is capable of metabolizing BPA. Scale-up fermentation of 1 with A. fumigatus gave a metabolite (2) and its structure was established as bisphenol A-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (BPAG) based on spectroscopic analyses.

Two phenolic allopyranosides and two phenolic amide allopyranosides, along with eight known phenolic compounds, including cimicifugic acids, shomaside B, fukiic acid, isoferulic acid, and piscidic acid, were isolated from the n-butanolic extract of rhizomes of Cimicifuga heracleifolia. On-line spectroscopic data for UV, NMR, and MS from a combination of LC-NMR and LC-MS techniques directly and rapidly provided sufficient structural information to identify and confirm all the structures of major phenolic compounds in the extract, in addition to their HPLC profiles. This combined analytic information was then used as a dereplication tool for structure-guided screening in order to isolate unknown phenolic compounds in the extract. Successive fractionation and purification using semi-preparative HPLC acquired four unknown allopyranosides, and their structures were identified as cis-ferulic acid 4-O-β-D-allopyranoside, trans-ferulic acid 4-O-β-D-allopyranoside, trans-feruloyltyramine 4-O-β-D-allopyranoside, and trans-feruloyl-(3-O-methyl)dopamine 4-O-β-D-allopyranoside, based on a subsequent spectroscopic interpretation.

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