Abstract
Radix astragali is widely used either as a single herb or as a collection of herbs in a complex prescription in China. In this study, bovine serum albumin functionalized magnetic nanoparticles (BSA-MN) coupled with high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) were used to screen and identify bound ligands from the n-butanol part of a Radix astragali extract. The prepared BSA-MN showed sufficient magnetic response for the separation with an ordinary magnet and satisfied reusability. Fundamental parameters affecting the preparation of BSA-MN and the screening efficiency were studied and optimized. Under the optimum conditions, four bound ligands were screened out from the n-butanol part of a Radix astragali extract and identified as genistin (1), calycosin-7-O-β-d-glucoside (2), ononin (3) and formononetin (4). This effective method could be widely applied for rapid screening and identification of active compounds from complex mixtures without the need for preparative isolation.
Highlights
Chinese herbal medicine has been widely used in China and many parts of Asia, and has a long history [1]
This might be due to the saturation of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on nanomaterial surfaces and the aggregation of magnetic nanoparticles (MN)
These results indicated that the bovine serum albumin functionalized magnetic nanoparticles (BSA-MN) exhibited satisfying reusability in screening
Summary
Chinese herbal medicine has been widely used in China and many parts of Asia, and has a long history [1]. The discovery of active compounds in Chinese herbal medicines is difficult due to its complexity [5]. The conventional bioassay guided fractionation of Chinese herbal medicines is a time consuming, labor intensive and low efficiency strategy [6] The existence of these problems seriously hindered the research of new drugs [7]. Research on seeking biologically active compounds from Chinese herbal medicines was calling for a more efficient approach. Pharmacological studies and clinical practice have demonstrated that Radix astragali possesses many biological functions [28,29]. The interaction between serum albumin and small molecules could result in a stable complex [32] This kind of interaction attracted great interest and could be considered as a method for screening active compounds from complex samples.
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