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Angelicae Pubescentis Radix (APR), a well-known traditional Chinese medicine, is widely used for the treatments of rheumatism and headache for centuries. To assess the absorption characteristics of coumarins from APR, a sensitive and reliable UPLC-MS/MS method was established for the simultaneous determination of sixteen coumarins from APR, including psoralen, xanthotoxin, bergapten, bergaptol, isoimperatorin, imperatorin, columbianetin, columbianetin acetate, columbianadin, oxypeucedanin hydrate, angelol B, umbelliferone, scopoletin, osthole, meranzin hydrate and nodakenetin. The specificity, linearity, sensitivity, precision, accuracy, recovery, matrix effect and stability of the method were all validated to be satisfactory. The method was then applied to the in vitro transport of APR extract (APRE) across human intestinal epithelial Caco-2 cell and in vivo pharmacokinetics in rats after oral administration of APRE. All of the tested coumarins were well or moderately absorbed across Caco-2 monolayers, and could be quickly absorbed into rat blood circulation after oral administration. Columbianetin was the most easily absorbed compound across Caco-2 cell, and also had extremely highest plasma concentration in vivo. Excellent correlation between in vitro absorption across Caco-2 cell monolayers and in vivo pharmacokinetics of coumarins from APRE was well verified. The results provided valuable information for the overall absorption characteristics of the coumarins from APR, as well as for its further studies of in vivo active substances in the further., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

A new ferulic acid ester named 4-methyl-3- trans -hexenylferulate ( 1 ), together with eight known phenolic acid esters ( 2 - 9 ), was isolated from the methanolic extract of the roots and rhizomes of Notopterygium incisium . Their structures were elucidated by extensive spectroscopic techniques, including 2D NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. 4-Methoxyphenethyl ferulate ( 8 ) NMR data is reported here for the first time. The uptake and transepithelial transport of the isolated compounds 1 - 9 were investigated in the human intestinal Caco-2 cell monolayer model. Compounds 2 and 6 were assigned for the well-absorbed compounds, compound 8 was assigned for the moderately absorbed compound, and compounds 1 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 7 , and 9 were assigned for the poorly absorbed compounds. Moreover, all of the isolated compounds were assayed for the inhibitory effects against nitric oxide (NO) production in the lipopolysaccharide-activated RAW264.7 macrophages model and L-N ⁶-(1-iminoethyl)-lysine (L-NIL) was used as a positive control. Compounds 1 , 5 , 8 , and 9 exhibited potent inhibitory activity on NO production with the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC 50 ) values of 1.01, 4.63, 2.47, and 2.73 μM, respectively, which were more effective than L-NIL with IC 50 values of 9.37 μM. These findings not only enriched the types of anti-inflammatory compounds in N. incisum but also provided some useful information for predicting their oral bioavailability and their suitability as drug leads or promising anti-inflammatory agents., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.