stilbenes and paeonol

Topics: Acetophenones; Flavonoids; Glycosides; Paeonia; Phenols; Stilbenes; Tannins; Triterpenes

Inflammation is an important therapeutic target. Due to their potency, steroidal drugs dominate the current treatment of inflammatory disorders. However, steroidal drugs can also exert a broad range of side effects and appear not always effective. This calls for the development of alternative drugs with a different mechanism of action, which are likely to be found in the field of natural products (NPs). For many NPs strong anti-inflammatory effects have been described, but usually investigating a single compound in a single assay. In this study, eight promising NPs were selected and tested against the strong anti-inflammatory drug prednisolone. For this head-to-head comparison, in vitro assays were used which represent different pathways of the inflammatory response: TNF-α and IL-6 expression by macrophages, IL-8 expression by colon epithelial cells, ROS production in polymorphonuclear leukocytes and platelet activation in whole blood. Performance profiles were established which allowed us to identify curcumin, berberine chloride and epigallocatechin gallate as potential alternatives for prednisolone or other glucocorticoids in inflammation.

Topics: Acetophenones; Animals; Anti-Inflammatory Agents; Berberine; Biological Products; Blood Platelets; Caco-2 Cells; Catechin; Cell Line; Curcumin; Humans; Interleukin-6; Interleukin-8; Macrophages; Mice; Neutrophils; Platelet Activation; Pravastatin; Prednisolone; Primary Cell Culture; Reactive Oxygen Species; Stilbenes; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha

The section Moutan of the genus Paeonia consists of eight species that are confined to a small area in China. A wide range of metabolites, including monoterpenoid glucosides, flavonoids, tannins, stilbenes, triterpenoids, steroids, paeonols, and phenols, have been found in the species belonging to section Moutan. However, although previous studies have analyzed the metabolites found in these species, the metabolic similarities that can be used for the chemotaxonomic distinction of section Moutan species are not yet clear. In this study, HPLC-DAD-based metabolic fingerprinting was applied to the classification of eight species: Paeoniasuffruticosa, Paeoniaqiui, Paeoniaostii, Paeoniarockii, Paeoniajishanensis, Paeoniadecomposita, Paeoniadelavayi, and Paeonialudlowii. In total, of the 47 peaks that exhibited an occurrence frequency of 75% in all 23 tree peony samples, 43 of these metabolites were identified according to their retention times and UV absorption spectra, together with combined HPLC-QTOF-MS. These data were compared with reference standard compounds. The 43 isolated compounds included 17 monoterpenoid glucosides, 11 galloyl glucoses, 5 flavonoids, 6 paeonols and 4 phenols. Principal component analysis (PCA), and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), showed a clear separation between the species based on metabolomics similarities and four groups were identified. The results exhibited good agreement with the classical classification based on the morphological characteristics and geographical distributions of the subsections Vaginatae F.C. Stern and Delavayanae F.C. Stern with the exception of P. decomposita, which was found to be a transition species between these two subsections. According to their metabolic fingerprinting characteristics, P. ostii and P. suffruticosa can be considered one species, and this result is consistent with the viewpoint of medicinal plant scientists but different from that of classical morphological processing. Significantly large variations were obtained in the metabolic profiles of P. delavayi, whereas no significant difference was found between P. delavayi and P. ludlowii. This indicates that these two species have a close genetic relationship. In conclusion, the combination of HPLC-DAD and multivariate analyses has great potential for guiding future chemotaxonomic studies to examine the potential pharmaceutical value of the effective constituents of tree peony species and appears to be able to clarify the confusion a

Topics: Acetophenones; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; DNA Fingerprinting; Drugs, Chinese Herbal; Flavonoids; Glucosides; Molecular Structure; Monoterpenes; Paeonia; Phenols; Phylogeny; Plants, Medicinal; Steroids; Stilbenes; Tannins; Triterpenes