Citrullus colocynthis (L.) Schrad. (Cucurbitaceae) is widely distributed in the desert areas of the world. The fruit bodies of C. colocynthis are recognized for their wide range of nutraceutical potential, as well as medicinal and pharmaceutical uses. The plant has been reported for various uses, such as asthma, bronchitis, cancer, colic, common cold, cough, diabetes, dysentery, and jaundice. The fruit has been extensively studied for its biological activities, which include insecticide, antitumor, and antidiabetic effects. Numerous bioactive compounds have been reported in its fruit bodies, such as essential oils, fatty acids, glycosides, alkaloids, and flavonoids. Of these, flavonoids or caffeic acid derivatives are the constituents associated with the inhibition of fungal or bacterial growth, whereas eudesmane sesquiterpenes or sesquiterpene lactones are most active against insects, mites, and nematodes. In this review, the scientific evidence for the biological activity of C. colocynthis against insecticide, cytotoxic, and antidiabetic effects is summarized.

Leonurine has been shown to have excellent anti-myocardial ischemia effects. Our previous studies suggested that cardiac protection by leonurine during myocardial ischemia appeared to be inextricably linked to its regulation of the liver. At present, however, there are few mechanistic studies of leonurine and its regulation of hepatic metabolism against ischemic injury. In this study, a metabolomics approach was developed to give a global view of the metabolic profiles of the heart and liver during myocardial ischemia. Principal component analysis and orthogonal partial least squares discrimination analysis were applied to filter differential metabolites, and a debiased sparse partial correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation of the differential metabolites between heart and liver. As a result, a total of thirty-one differential metabolites were identified, six in the myocardial tissue and twenty-five in the hepatic tissue, involving multiple metabolic pathways including glycine, serine and threonine, purine, fatty acid, and amino acid metabolic pathways. Correlation analysis revealed a net of these differential metabolites, suggesting an interaction between hepatic and myocardial metabolism. These results suggest that leonurine may reduce myocardial injury during myocardial ischemia by regulating the metabolism of glycine, serine and threonine, purine, fatty acids, and amino acids in the liver and heart.

Oxypeucedanin, a furanocoumarin extracted from many traditional Chinese herbal medicines, has a variety of pharmacological effects. However, the independent pharmacokinetic characteristics and bioavailability of this compound remains elusive. In this study, a rapid, sensitive, and selective method using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC/MS/MS) was developed for evaluating the intravenous and oral pharmacokinetics of oxypeucedanin. After intravenous administration of oxypeucedanin (2.5, 5, and 10 mg/kg), and intragastric administration of oxypeucedanin (20 mg/kg), blood samples were collected periodically from the tail vein. The plasma concentration-time curves were plotted, and the pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated using a non-compartmental model analysis. After intravenous administration of oxypeucedanin (single dosing at 2.5, 5, and 10 mg/kg) to rats, the pharmacokinetics fit the linear kinetics characteristics, which showed that some parameters including average elimination half-life (T_1/2Z of 0.61~0.66 h), mean residence time (MRT of 0.62~0.80 h), apparent volume of distribution (V_Z of 4.98~7.50 L/kg), and systemic clearance (CL_Z of 5.64~8.55 L/kg/h) are dose-independent and the area under concentration-time curve (AUC) increased in a dose-proportional manner. Single oral administration of oxypeucedanin (20 mg/kg) showed poor and slow absorption with the mean time to reach the peak concentration (T_max) of 3.38 h, MRT of 5.86 h, T_1/2Z of 2.94 h, and a mean absolute bioavailability of 10.26% in rats. These results provide critical information for a better understanding of the pharmacological effect of oxypeucedanin, which will facilitate its research and development.

In this study, a numerical method for designing efficient adiabatic devices with multiple structural parameter variations (NAMSP) is developed. This method can be applied to a wide range of devices based on adiabatic mode evolution structures. The numerical design complexity of multiple structural parameter variations will be greatly improved compared to the case of a single parameter variation. Therefore, an efficient domain decomposition scheme was originally introduced into the NAMSP method. The proposed method can help compute compact adiabatic guided-wave shapes for these adiabatic devices with multiple structural parameter variations. Adiabatic devices with multiple structural parameter variations are used to connect different complex waveguides, which are often difficult to design using analytical methods. The design involves tapering the width of the two or more core layers at one time; however, this change in the width typically affects the mode both vertically and horizontally. Our numerical method allows the shape of the width variation for each layer that facilitates compact adiabatic mode transformation to be obtained. The efficiency of the adiabatic device that was designed using the NAMSP method considerably exceeds that obtained using a linear-shaped device. Moreover, our designed adiabatic device enables an ultra-wide operating bandwidth (spans in the wavelength from 1050 nm to 4780 nm).

In this study, a functional segmentation method for the design of adiabatic devices is presented. This method can be applied to calculate the compact adiabatic waveguide shapes for adiabatic taper waveguides and adiabatic mode converters. We introduce two algorithms, namely the quadratic function segmentation design for the adiabatic taper waveguide and the cubic function segmentation design for the adiabatic mode coupler. The design shows that for each segment, there is no need for separate simulations to obtain the length of each segment, and only the length of each segment can be determined by equations. This approach is much less cumbersome than other numerical design methods for adiabatic devices. The proposed functional segmentation design requires only a device length of 36 μm to achieve 95% power transfer efficiency, while a traditional linear-shape connection requires a device length of 54 μm to achieve the same power transfer efficiency. Therefore, the device designed by the function segmentation method has better compactness compared to the conventional linear-shape connection design of adiabatic devices.