Drechmeria panacis sp. nov., an endophyte isolated from Panax notoginseng.[Pubmed: 30113296]

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Phytochemistry, pharmacology, and clinical use of Panax notoginseng flowers buds.[Pubmed: 30088301]

Panax notoginseng is a well-known traditional Chinese medicine, and dried flower buds of P. notoginseng (FBP) have also been used as a medicine or tea for a long time. The pharmacological effects of FBP include antihypertensive, anticancer, hepatoprotective, and cardiovascular protective effects. The compounds in FBP include saponins, flavonoids, volatile oils, and polysaccharides. The total saponins are the principal bioactive components. In modern applications, FBP is used to treat hypertension and tinnitus. There have been many studies on FBP and its effects in recent years, and it has attracted much attention in the medical field. This review summarizes the chemical components, pharmacological action, and clinical uses of FBP comprehensively to provide the references of deeper studies.

Rapid identification and quantification of Panax notoginseng with its adulterants by near infrared spectroscopy combined with chemometrics.[Pubmed: 30077893]

Traditional methods for identification of Panax notoginseng (PN) such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography (GC) are time-consuming, laborious and difficult to realize rapid and online analysis. In this research, the feasibility of identification and quantification of PN with rhizoma curcumae (RC), Curcuma longa (CL) and rhizoma alpiniae offcinarum (RAO) are investigated by using near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy combined with chemometrics. Five chemical pattern recognition methods including hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), artificial neural networks (ANN), support vector machine (SVM) and extreme learning machine (ELM) are used to build identification model of the dataset with 109 samples of PN and its three adulterants. Then seven datasets of binary, ternary and quaternary adulterations of PN are designed, respectively. Five multivariate calibration methods, i.e., principal component regression (PCR), support vector regression (SVR), partial least squares regression (PLSR), ANN and ELM are used to build quantitative model and compared for each dataset, separately. Finally, in order to further improve the prediction accuracy, SG smoothing, 1st derivative, 2nd derivative, continuous wavelet transform (CWT), standard normal variate (SNV), multiple scatter correction (MSC) and their combinations are investigated. Results show that PLS-DA and SVM can achieve 100% classification accuracy for identification of 109 PN with its three adulterants. PLSR is an optimal calibration method by comprehensive consideration of prediction accuracy, over-fitting and efficiency for the quantitative analysis of seven adulterated datasets. Furthermore, the predictive ability of the PLSR model for PN contents can be improved obvious by pretreating the spectra by the optimal preprocessing method, with correlation coefficients of which all higher than 0.99.

Nototronesides A-C, Three Triterpene Saponins with a 6/6/9 Fused Tricyclic Tetranordammarane Carbon Skeleton from the Leaves of Panax notoginseng.[Pubmed: 30020793]

Three triterpene saponins, nototronesides A-C (1-3), possessing an unprecedented 6/6/9 fused tricyclic tetranordammarane core, were isolated from the leaves of Panax notoginseng. Their structures were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic data, and the structure of sapogenin (1a) was further confirmed by X-ray crystallography. The existence of 1-3 adds a new dimension to the diversity of the triterpene family. Moreover, compound 2 showed a moderate neuroprotective effect on serum deficiency-induced cellular damage in PC12 cells.

Impacts of silicon addition on arsenic fractionation in soils and arsenic speciation in Panax notoginseng planted in soils contaminated with high levels of arsenic.[Pubmed: 30015185]

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Affiliation with Natural Products at KIB of Prof. Zhou Jun: On the Occasion of 80th Anniversary of Kunming Institute of Botany, CAS.[Pubmed: 30014450]

Prof. Zhou Jun, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (1999), is a phytochemist and medicinal chemist of China. He is one of the pioneers of Kunming Institute of Botany, CAS and a major founder of the State Key Laboratory of Phytochemistry and Plant Resources in West China. The chemical compositions of some TCM from genus of Dioscorea, Aconitum, Panax, Paris, Cynanchum, Gastrodia, Dendrobium etc. and family Asclepiadaceae, Caryophyllaceae, Hypoxidaceae etc. have been explored by Prof. Zhou's team as steroids, triterpenoids, alkaloids, cyclic peptides and phenols etc., which revealed the main active composition of those TCM such as Panax notoginseng, Paris yunnanensis and Gastrodia elata.

Notoginsenoside R1 promotes the growth of neonatal rat cortical neurons via the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway.[Pubmed: 29992896]

Notoginsenoside R1 (NGR1) is one of the main effective components of Panax notoginseng. Primary cortical neurons were harvested from neonatal rats and cultured to analyze the role of NGR1 in neuronal growth and the effects of NGR1 on the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. Following treatment with NGR1, immunocytochemistry was used to detect expression of Tuj1 and MAP2, and RT-qPCR was used to measure mRNA levels of key factors in the Wnt signaling pathway. Results showed that NGR1 promotes growth of cultured neurons and significantly up-regulates mRNA levels of β-catenin, Dishevelled, and Frizzled. To further confirm whether NGR1 promoted cortical neuron growth via the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, we knocked down β-catenin mRNA by siRNA interference; following NGR1 treatment of β-catenin-knockdown neurons, β-catenin mRNA levels increased significantly. In conclusion, these results demonstrate that NGR1 promotes growth of cultured cortical neurons from the neonatal rat, possibly via the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway.