Current Pharmaceutical Analysis - Volume 20, Issue 4, 2024

Background: The screening of active ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine is an important task in the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine, and the commonly used analytical means in the past were mainly to screen the extracts of traditional Chinese medicine through pharmacological experiments, but the method has major defects. The target fishing strategy provides a new idea for the screening of active ingredients, and it has rapidly become a hot research direction, but there are many methods that need to be summarized and aggregated. Objective: It aims to provide readers with an understanding of the achievements, developments, and dilemmas of target fishing techniques over the past few years and to provide new ideas for subsequent research. Methods: Research articles in recent years using target fishing as an entry point are used as a basis to summarize the types of literature based on their principles and characteristics and to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each method. Conclusion: This paper summarizes the classification and development of fishing techniques such as ultrafiltration, equilibrium dialysis, cell membrane chromatography, and immobilization of target molecules and target fishing and describes the principles and characteristics of these methods. The applications of these methods in the active ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine are summarized, and the problems and solutions of these methods are discussed.

Alkaloids provide significant health benefits in moderation, but excessive levels can pose health hazards. They play an important role in the creation of numerous pharmacological medications, acting as potent antispasmodics, analgesics, and even anti-cancer medicines. A detailed review of sensitive and accurate alkaloid analytical techniques can be used as a guide for future analyses of alkaloids in pertinent research. The main aim of this manuscript is to review the literature on the detection and separation of alkaloids by using various methods like analytical, bioanalytical, and electrochemical techniques, published during 2018-2023. An in-depth review of the literature was carried out using a variety of databases, including Web of Knowledge, PubMed, and Google Scholar. Consulting relevant published materials, including books, was another aspect of this research. The keywords used in the search were alkaloids, analytical techniques, bio-analytical techniques, electrochemical techniques, and biosensors. These were carefully examined in more detail, and significant data and findings were collected and presented using tables. The publication highlights the significance of advanced chromatographic techniques in the separation and isolation of alkaloids. It discusses several analytical, bio-analytical, and electrochemical analytical techniques, which include sensors and biosensors, and adds to the extensive review of alkaloid detection techniques. Recent advancements and methodologies for improving the knowledge of the detection and separation of alkaloids are presented in this article, which is beneficial for the researcher involved in developing analytical methods for alkaloid detection. Current efforts and advanced analytical approaches for alkaloid detection are given in this manuscript, which is crucial in favor of improving the health and wellness of society.

Background and Objective: Rivaroxaban, a direct oral anticoagulant, has become the first-line therapy medicine to prevent and treat Venous Thromboembolism (VTE). Patients with femoropopliteal venous thrombosis may use rivaroxaban along with diosmin. Rivaroxaban is the substrate of CYP3A4 and P-glycoprotein (P-gp), but diosmin is the inhibitor. The combination might lead to Drug-drug Interaction (DDI). The aim of this study was to assess the effect of diosmin on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of rivaroxaban in rats. Methods: Plasma concentration of rivaroxaban in the absence or presence of diosmin groups was determined by High-performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Pharmacokinetics parameters were calculated and used to evaluate pharmacokinetics interactions. Anticoagulation was investigated by Prothrombin Time (PT), International Normalized Ratio (INR), and Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time (APTT). Antithrombotic efficacy was investigated by the length of tail thrombosis, the content levels of Interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and D-dimer (D-D) in rats, and histopathological sections in the tail thrombosis model. Results: Maximum concentration (Cmax), 0-t Area Under the Curve (AUC0–t), 0-∞ Area Under the Curve (AUC0–∞) of rivaroxaban increased significantly in the combination group. PT, INR, and APPT in the combination group exhibited an increase compared to the Rivaroxaban group. Simultaneously, the length of tail thrombosis and levels of IL-1β and D-D were significantly reduced. Significant improvement of tissue histology in tail thrombosis could be observed. Conclusion: Taken together, diosmin could significantly affect the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of rivaroxaban, and enhance anticoagulant and antithrombotic efficacy in rats. More attention should be paid to avoid harmful DDI in the clinic.

Background: Non-enzymatic detection has become a research hotspot because of its alternativity in solving problems compared to enzymatic biosensors, but most of those sensors require a strong basic pH environment (higher than 10) to active their surface, restricting their use in clinical detection because the pH of body fluid is around 7.4. Furthermore, metal oxide sensors with specific morphologies are reported to have a fast electrocatalytic response. Therefore, Fe2O3 nanocomposites with porous structure are selected for glucose detection research in a physiological pH environment. Objective: The study aimed to assess the potential use of porous reduced graphene oxide-Fe2O3 nanorods in glucose detection in a physiological pH environment. Method: Hydrothermal method was used to prepare porous Fe2O3-rGO NRs (Nanorods) and hollow Fe2O3/C nanoparticles. Cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy were used to evaluate the performance of our materials. Results: Porous-reduced graphene oxide-Fe2O3 nanorods have exhibited better performance than hollow carbon-Fe2O3 core-shell nanoparticles for glucose detection in a physiological pH environment. Conclusion: Non-enzymatic glucose sensing based upon cavity Fe2O3-rGO NRs under a physiological pH environment has been successfully realized, attributing to their high electron mobility and large specific surface area. Furthermore, the results of this work indicate that the glucose sensor prepared here has shown good repeatability and stability, which suggests its potential use in clinical detection.

Objective: The objective of this study is to develop and validate a routine screening test for the determination of three common antipyretic-analgesic synthetic drugs (paracetamol, ibuprofen, and aspirin) adulteration in herbal products using Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) coupled with chemometric method. Methods: ATR-FTIR spectra of sixteen testing sets of herbal product samples for pain and fever indications were used for multivariate chemometrics model construction. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) was selected as a method for model construction with IBM SPSS for statistical analysis. Model development employed feature selection, such as the stepwise method for variable selection. The model with a high %correct classification and cross-validation was selected and was then validated with an independent testing data set with an auto-prediction test, confusion matrix, and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. To validate the developed test for routine use, the result from ATR-FTIR method was compared with the standard HPLC and TLC analyses used for adulteration screening. Results: The selected model's overall %correct classification result was 97.7%, with a cross-validation of 93.8% rate in training set samples. External validation with an independent testing dataset gave an overall correct classification of 93.8%, with an area under the curve of ROC at 0.979. Comparative testing revealed that model performance was comparable with the HPLC and TLC methods, which routinely detect the presence of paracetamol, aspirin, and ibuprofen. The results of testing set samples classification were consistent with training set samples. Conclusion: Against the standard chromatographic methods, the multivariate chemometric model based on ATR-FTIR demonstrates comparable detection capability to determine adulteration of paracetamol, ibuprofen, and aspirin in herbal products.