Sutherlandia frutescens is one of the most promising commercialized, indigenous and medicinal plants of South Africa that is used as an immune-booster, and a traditional treatment for cancer. However, few studies report on its toxicology and dosage in vivo. There is still room to better understand its cytotoxicity effects in animal systems. We prepared two extracts, one with 80% (v/v) ethanol, and the other, with water. Both were studied to determine the maximum tolerable concentration when extracts were applied at 0 to 200 μg/ml to a Tuebingen zebrafish embryo line. The development of zebrafish embryos after 24 h post fertilization (hpf) was studied. A concentration range of 5 μg/ml to 50 μg/ml was then chosen to monitor the ontological development of cultured embryos. A liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was used to study the differences of the two experimental extracts. Chemical variation between the extracts was illustrated using chemometrics. Both extracts led to bleeding and pericardial cyst formation when applied at high concentrations to the zebrafish embryo culture. Chronic teratogenic toxicities, leading to pericardial edema, yolk sac swelling, and other abnormal developmental characteristics, were detected. The aqueous extracts of S. frutescens were less toxic to the larvae than the ethanol extracts, validating preference for aqueous preparations when used in traditional medicine. Chemical differences between the water extracts and alcoholic extracts were analysed using LC-MS/MS. A supervised metabolomics approach, targeting the sutherlandiosides and sutherlandins using orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA), illustrated that sutherlandiosides were the main chemical features that can be used to distinguish between the two extracts, despite the extracts being highly similar in their chemical constituents. The water extract caused less cytotoxic and abnormal developmental effects compared to the ethanolic extract, and, this is likely due to differences in concentrations of extracted chemicals rather than the chemical profile per se. This study provides more evidence of cytotoxicity effects linked to S. frutescens using the zebrafish embryo bioassay as a study tool.

Previous studies found that Polygonatum sibiricum polysaccharide (PSP) exhibited anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative effects on type 2 diabetes (T2DM). However, the roles and detailed mechanisms of PSP on the anti-diabetic osteoporosis are still poorly defined. The purpose of this study was to identify the detailed mechanisms of PSP-induced anti-diabetic osteoporosis. The roles of PSP on diabetic osteoporosis were evaluated on a T2DM zebrafish model. Furthermore, the changes of related physiological indicators and metabolites in adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) were investigated by pharmacology and metabolomic analyses. Results showed that PSP significantly reduced the blood glucose content and induced caudal fin regeneration. Metabolomic analysis found that the key metabolites involved in arachidonic acid metabolism, PPAR signaling pathway, linoleic acid metabolism, steroid hormone biosynthesis, amino acid biosynthesis and metabolism, alpha-Linolenic acid metabolism, sphingolipid signaling pathway were affected by PSP treatment. Among these, PSP reversed the trend changes of several metabolites, such as L-aspartic acid, choline, and propionylcarnitine. Besides, further changes of TNF-α and IL-1β transcripts suggested that the proinflammatory cytokines were also involved in the PSP-triggered anti-diabetic osteoporosis. Above findings provided the theoretical basis for the use to plant PSP as food ingredients or bioactive compounds in natural health products on diabetic osteoporosis.

Tea-oil tree (Camellia oleifera Abel) is an important woody oil tree in southern China, cultivated on more than 7,400 ha in Shexian County, Anhui Province. In a survey conducted from 2016 to 2017 i...

Although previous studies have indicated that heme oxygenase 1 (HO1/HY1) regulates the flowering time via the photoperiod pathway, the specific mechanism is still elusive. Here, we found that the Arabidopsis hy1-100 mutant displayed early flowering, and the characteristic expression patterns of several master genes involved in the autonomous pathway were altered. Notably, the transcript levels of FLOWERING LOCUS C (AtFLC) gene declined developmentally in both wild-type and hy1-100 mutant, with a more pronounced fold reduction observed in the mutant. Genetic evidence further underlined that hy1-100/FLCOE plants partially reversed the early flowering phenomenon of hy1-100 mutant, suggesting that AtHO1 regulated flowering at least partially through the AtFLC-involved autonomous pathway, as supported by changes in FLOWERING LOCUS T (AtFT) and SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CO1 (AtSOC1) transcripts. Further analysis of hy1-100/ft mutants revealed that hy1-100/ft and ft mutants displayed similar late flowering phenotypes, accompanied by downregulated APETALA1 (AtAP1) and AtSOC1, indicating that AtFT played a crucial role in AtHO1-regulated flowering. Two key conclusions are drawn: first, the loss of AtHO1 function promotes early flowering in Arabidopsis, which was genetically linked to the autonomous pathway regulating AtFLC expression; second, AtFT was an essential downstream factor mediating AtHO1-regulated flowering.