Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is widely used in clinical practice, including skin and gastrointestinal diseases. Here, a potential TCM QY305 (T‐QY305) is reported that can modulate the recruitment of neutrophil in skin and colon tissue thus reducing cutaneous adverse reaction and diarrhea induced by epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors (EGFRIs). On another hand, the T‐QY305 formula, through regulating neutrophil recruitment features would highlight the presence of N‐QY305, a subunit nanostructure contained in T‐QY305, and confirm its role as potentially being the biomaterial conferring to T‐QY305 its pharmacodynamic features. Here, the clinical records of two patients are analyzed expressing cutaneous adverse reaction and demonstrate positive effect of T‐QY305 on the simultaneous inhibition of both cutaneous adverse reaction and diarrhea in animal models. The satisfying results obtained from T‐QY305, lead to further process to the isolation of N‐QY305 from T‐QY305, in order to demonstrate that the potency of T‐QY305 originates from the nanostructure N‐QY305. Compared to T‐QY305, N‐QY305 exhibits higher potency upon reducing adverse reactions. The data represent a promising candidate for reducing cutaneous adverse reaction and diarrhea, meanwhile proposing a new strategy to highlight the presence of nanostructures being the “King” of Chinese medicine formula as the pharmacodynamic basis.

Background: Formaldehyde can induce misfolding and aggregation of Tau protein and β amyloid protein, which are characteristic pathological features of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). An increase in endogenous formaldehyde concentration in the brain is closely related to dementia in aging people. Therefore, the discovery of effective drugs to counteract the adverse impact of formaldehyde on neuronal cells is beneficial for the development of appropriate treatments for age-associated cognitive decline.Methods: In this study, we assessed the neuroprotective properties of TongLuoJiuNao (TLJN), a traditional Chinese medicine preparation, against formaldehyde stress in human neuroblastoma cells (SH-SY5Y cell line). The effect of TLJN and its main ingredients (geniposide and ginsenoside Rg1) on cell viability, apoptosis, intracellular antioxidant activity and the expression of apoptotic-related genes in the presence of formaldehyde were monitored.Results: Cell counting studies showed that in the presence of TLJN, the viability of formaldehyde-treated SH-SY5Y cells significantly recovered. Laser scanning confocal microscopy revealed that the morphology of formaldehyde-injured cells was rescued by TLJN and geniposide, an effective ingredient of TLJN. Moreover, the inhibitory effect of geniposide on formaldehyde-induced apoptosis was dose-dependent. The activity of intracellular antioxidants (superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase) increased, as did mRNA and protein levels of the antiapoptotic geneBcl-2after the addition of geniposide. In contrast, the expression of the apoptotic-related gene -P53, apoptotic executer -caspase 3and apoptotic initiator -caspase 9were downregulated after geniposide treatment.Conclusions: Our results indicate that geniposide can protect SH-SY5Y cells against formaldehyde stress through modulating the expression ofBcl-2,P53,caspase 3andcaspase 9,and by increasing the activity of intracellular superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase.

CHMs-derived materials with different nanostructures for various diseases (created with Biorender.com).