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• TyrAT, PPO, TDC, and SOMT are important in alkaloid synthesis of L. aggregate. • N-methyllaurotetanine accumulates exclusively in roots of L. aggregata. • Isoquinoline alkaloids of L. aggregata accumulate preferentially in roots. • Taproots of L. aggregata can be valuable raw materials for pharmaceutical industry. Lindera aggregata (L. aggregata) is a wild shrub growing in the forests of Southeast Asia, whose main bioactive constituents are isoquinoline alkaloids. They are widely used in food and pharmaceutical industries. The studies on the metabolites and biosynthesis pathways in L. aggregata remain poorly understood. Nine isoquinoline alkaloid compounds were identified by UPLC Triple TOF-MS/MS in this study. Except for N-methyllaurotetanine, most isoquinoline alkaloid compounds were widely distributed in various parts of L. aggregata and accumulated preferentially in roots than in leaves. Transcriptome data showed that several isoquinoline alkaloid biosynthetic genes, such as TyrAT, PPO, TDC, and SOMT, were identified to play important roles in generating differential metabolites in roots and leaves of L. aggregata. Concentration-dependent analgesic effects and toxic effects of them were demonstrated in zebrafish experiments, and the overall ranking was JRAL > TRAL > LAL. The results of this study would provide useful information for the synthesis mechanisms of isoquinoline alkaloids in L. aggregata , and provide valuable information for the application of traditional non-medicinal parts of L. aggregata in food and pharmaceutical industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional Chinese herb Rubus chingii Hu (R. chingii) is widely used in clinical practice due to its beneficial effects. Flavonoids are the important class of pharmacological substances in R. chingii , however, the molecular mechanism underlying the differences in active flavonoid contents in R. chingii at different developmental stages remain poorly understood. In this experiment, we selected four developmental stages (GG, GY, YR, RR) of R. chingii as the research material. We studied the untargeted and targeted metabolic profiles of flavonoids in different periods of R. chingii , combining full-length and comparative transcriptome analyses. Functional analyses were conducted on genes implicated in flavonoid differences. GG and RR displayed relatively higher and lower contents of flavonols, flavones, flavanols, flavanones, and isoflavonoid, respectively. RNA-seq analyses showed structural genes such as RcPAL, RcC4H, Rc4CL, RcCHS, RcCHI, RcF3H, RcF3′H, and RcFLS in flavonoid biosynthesis pathway were upregulated in GG, which were essential for the accumulation flavanones, flavones, and flavonols (effective components). qRT-PCR analyses investigated that six structural genes RcCHI, RcF3H, 2 RcCHS, and 2 Rc4CL, two TFs RcMYB308 and RcMYB123 had a consistent expression pattern with which in transcriptome. Also, an interaction network showed that the RcMYB308 could positively regulate Ka3R, Qu, Qu3G, AS, Hy, Ti through RcF3H. Furthermore, Subcellular localization analysis revealed that RcMYB308 was localization to the nucleus. In tobacco, RcMYB308 was overexpressed, resulting in higher flavonoids, RcF3H, RcF3′H, RcCHI, and RcFLS. RcMYB308 upregulated RcF3H in dual-luciferase assays. These results provide new insights for further understanding the molecular mechanism regulating flavonol biosynthesis in R. chingii fruit, and also provide a potential MYB regulator for molecular breeding of R. chingii. • Metabolic profiles with transcriptome analyses were performed in R. chingii. • GG and RR displayed relatively higher and lower contents of flavonoids. • Important structural genes in flavonoid biosynthesis were upregulated in GG. • RcMYB308 led to increased flavonols, RcF3H, RcF3′H, RcCHI, and RcFLS. • Dual-luciferase assays confirmed that RcMYB308 upregulated RcF3H. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Lindera aggregata can alleviate CKD by improving kidney pathology. • Lindera aggregata can alleviate CKD by regulating related biochemical indicators. • Lindera aggregata can alleviate CKD by regulating the metabolic profiling. • Lindera aggregata can regulate TGF-β/Smad signaling pathway. Lindera aggregata is a main Chinese herb of ancient prescriptions Suoquan pill applied for treating the chronic kidney disease (CKD). A large number of application histories of Lindera aggregata in the treatment of CKD have been recorded in Chinese traditional medical literature. The previous reports revealed that Lindera aggregata can treat CKD. Rats were randomly divided into control, model, Huangkui, Lindera aggregata ethanol extract (LEE) and Lindera aggregata water extract (LWE) groups. hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining was used to detect the pathology of kidney. The levels of serum creatinine (Scr), serum Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), urine protein (UP), kidney index(KI) were evaluated. The UPLC − QTOF/MS were applied to probe the metabolic profile. Furthermore, Indoxyl sulfate-induced human renal tubular epithelial (HK-2) cell model was built to determine the expression levels of pathogenesis-related proteins. The results demonstrated that LEE and LWE significantly inhibited the rebound in Scr, BUN, NGAL, UP and KI in models, except for the effect of LWE at low dose (LWE-L) and LEE at low dose (LEE-L) on KI and the effect of LWE-H at high dose (LWE-H) and LEE-L on BUN and NGAL. Moreover, Lindera aggregata extracts alleviated renal tubular dilatation, interstitial fibrosis and interstitial inflammation. By analysis, twenty-eight metabolites were related to CKD. After intervention of Lindera aggregata extracts, some metabolites approach to a normal-like level, such as Indoxyl sulfate. These metabolites are mainly involved in tryptophan, fatty acid, glycerophospholipid, tyrosine and arachidonic acid metabolic pathways. Furthermore, Lindera aggregata extracts mediate the expression of smad2, smad3, smad7 and TGF-β in Indoxyl sulfate-induced HK-2 cell. Lindera aggregata extracts can mitigate adenine-induced CKD by modulating the metabolic profile and TGF-β/Smad signaling pathway, providing important supports for developing protective agent of Lindera aggregata for CKD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pseudostellariae Radix is an important traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which is consumed commonly for its positive health effects. However, a lack of transcriptomic and genomic information hinders research on Pseudostellariae Radix . Here, high-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) was employed for the de novo assembly to analyze the transcriptome in Pseudostellariae Radix , finding significantly differentially expressed genes in this TCM from different fields based on RNA-seq and bioinformatic analysis. A total of 146,408,539 paired-end reads were generated and assembled into 89,857 unigenes with an average length of 862 bp. All of the assembly unigenes were annotated by running BLASTx and BLASTn similarity searches on the Non-redundant nucleotide database (NT), the Non-redundant protein database (NR), Swiss-Prot, Cluster of Orthologous Groups (COG), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), Gene Ontology (GO), and Interpro. On the basis of bioinformatic analysis and the expression profiles for Pseudostellariae Radix , 29 significantly differentially expressed genes were identified, which provides the basic information for exploring the molecular mechanisms that determine the quality of Pseudostellariae Radix from different fields. The expression levels of 29 genes were validated by real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). This is the first study to sample Pseudostellariae Radix , which provides an invaluable resource for understanding the genome of this herb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A smart home system composed of numerous smart devices has benefited people's life due to the feature of convenience. With the development of smart home technology, huge amounts of data stored on external servers flow between different smart devices, and the integrity of these data is of great importance to the security of smart home systems. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based data integrity verification scheme that supports efficient dynamic operations for a smart home system. In the verification scheme, we utilize the home gateway (HG) to aggregate all the data information and design a data structure that can be efficiently and dynamically operated to store the tag information of the data, which can reduce the local storage pressure in smart home systems. Moreover, homomorphic verifiable tags are used to formulate verification strategies and record the interactions between HG, cloud service providers (CSP), and third-party auditor (TPA) on the blockchain to make the verification service traceable and useful. Then, the theoretical analysis and experiments prove that the scheme is effective and cost-acceptable in smart home systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pseudostellaria heterophylla is an important traditional Chinese herbal medicine with vast clinical consumption because of its positive effects. To date, changes in the metabolite composition of P. heterophylla have been well documented; however, the molecular differences between cultivated P. heterophylla and its wild-type are still unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate differences in cultivated and wild P. heterophylla . Due to the lack of a genomic database, we used high-throughput transcriptomic and proteomic technologies to identify proteins in the herb. Isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) MS/MS were used to detect statistically significant changes between cultivated and wild P. heterophylla . We detected 3775 proteins; 332 showed differential accumulations across two different ecotypes of P. heterophylla . 71 significant differential expressions of proteins were selected based on GO annotations, KEGG, STRING analysis, and expression level. Quantitative real-time PCR analysis confirmed the authenticity and accuracy of the proteomic analysis. The results indicated that the carbohydrate and cellular amino acid metabolisms in cultivated P. heterophylla were weaker than those in its wild-type; seven important proteins were found to regulate sucrose and amino acids. This will provide the basic information for exploring the cause of differences in secondary metabolites in different ecotypes of P. heterophylla and the protein mechanism of its quality formation. Biological significance This study combined a transcriptome, proteome, and metabolism approach for analyzing differentially expressed proteins of cultivated and wild P. heterophylla and established the relationship between significantly differentially expressed proteins and differential chemical components in non-model plants. The results of proteomic analysis provide the basic information for exploring the quality forming process, which will demonstrate, and provide guidance for, the study of effective constituents of P. heterophylla and its quality formation mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fritillariae Thunbergii Flos (FTF) included in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia (1977 Edition) is a Chinese medicinal herb traditionally used to treat bronchitis. In recent years, it has been applied in the treatment of lung cancer. However, the molecular mechanism remains largely unknown. The screening of bioactive compounds, acquisition of drug targets, network construction, and experimental validation in vivo were combined to explored the mechanism of FTF in the treatment of lung carcinoma with regards to systems pharmacology. The network Lung Cancer Pathway consisted of 114 nodes (44 compounds and 70 potential targets) and 361 edges, as well as modules that included inflammatory response, angiogenesis, negative regulation of the apoptotic process, and positive regulation of cell proliferation and migration. It was examined by conducting experiments that involved the administration of ethanol-based extracts of FTF in Lewis lung carcinoma mice. The extracts exerted excellent anti-lung cancer effects in vivo by significantly inhibiting tumor proliferation, thereby extending the survival period of tumor-bearing mice. Moreover, FTF induced the downregulation of PIK3CG, Bcl-2, eNOS, VEGF, p-STAT3, and STAT3 genes in tumor-bearing mice. The findings of the present study verify the therapeutic effects and mechanism of FTF on lung cancer and provide a theoretical basis to support the comprehensive utilization of FTF resources. Image 1 • Systems Pharmacology revealed 44 important compounds and 70 potential targets of Fritillariae Thunbergii Flos. • The possible mechanism of Fritillariae Thunbergii Flos in lung cancer treatment involved inflammatory response, angiogenesis, apoptotic process, and cell proliferation and migration. • PIK3CG, Bcl-2, eNOS, VEGF, p-STAT3, and STAT3 genes in tumor-bearing mice could be the key targets of Fritillariae Thunbergii Flos in lung cancer treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]