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This study aims to evaluate the prebiotic potential of polysaccharides derived from Stellariae Radix (SRPs) and explore their influence on the gut microbiota composition in mice. Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium longum were cultivated in an MRS medium, while their growth kinetics, clumping behavior, sugar utilization, pH variation, growth density, and probiotic index were meticulously monitored. Additionally, the impact of crude Stellariae Radix polysaccharides (CSRP) on the richness and diversity of gut microbiota in mice was assessed via 16S rDNA sequencing. The results demonstrated the remarkable ability of CSRPs to stimulate the proliferation of Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium longum. Moreover, the oral administration of CSRPs to mice led to a noticeable increase in beneficial bacterial populations and a concurrent decrease in detrimental bacterial populations within the intestinal flora. These findings provided an initial validation of CSRPs as a promising agent in maintaining the equilibrium of gut microbiota in mice, thereby offering a substantial theoretical foundation for developing Stellariae Radix as a prebiotic ingredient in various applications, including food, healthcare products, and animal feed. Furthermore, this study presented novel insights for the exploration and utilization of Stellariae Radix resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original plant of Chinese medicine Stellariae Radix (Yin Chai Hu) is Stellaria dichotoma L. var. lanceolata Bge (abbreviated as SDL). SDL is a perennial herbaceous plant and a characteristic crop in Ningxia. Growth years are vital factors that affect the quality of perennial medicinal materials. This study aims to investigate the impact of growth years on SDL and screen for the optimal harvest age by comparing the medicinal material characteristics of SDL with different growth years. Additionally, metabolomics analysis using UHPLC-Q-TOF MS was employed to investigate the impact of growth years on the accumulation of metabolites in SDL. The results show that the characteristics of medicinal materials and the drying rate of SDL gradually increase with the increase in growth years. The fastest development period of SDL occurred during the first 3 years, after which the development slowed down. Medicinal materials characteristics of 3-year-old SDL exhibited mature qualities with a high drying rate, methanol extract content, and the highest content of total sterols and total flavonoids. A total of 1586 metabolites were identified, which were classified into 13 major classes with more than 50 sub-classes. Multivariate statistical analysis indicated significant differences in the diversity of metabolites of SDL in different growth years, with greater differences observed in metabolites as the growth years increased. Moreover, different highly expressed metabolites in SDL at different growth years were observed: 1–2 years old was beneficial to the accumulation of more lipids, while 3–5 years old was conducive to accumulating more alkaloids, benzenoids, etc. Furthermore, 12 metabolites accumulating with growth years and 20 metabolites decreasing with growth years were screened, and 17 significantly different metabolites were noted in 3-year-old SDL. In conclusion, growth years not only influenced medicinal material characteristics, drying rate, content of methanol extract, and total sterol and flavonoid contents, but also had a considerable effect on SDL metabolites and metabolic pathways. SDL planted for 3 years presented the optimum harvest time. The screened significantly different metabolites with biological activity, such as rutin, cucurbitacin e, isorhamnetin-3-o-glucoside, etc., can be utilized as potential quality markers of SDL. This research provides references for studying the growth and development of SDL medicinal materials, the accumulation of metabolites, and the selection of optimal harvest time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stellaria Radix, called Yinchaihu in Chinese, is a traditional Chinese medicine, which is obtained from the dried roots of Stellaria dichotoma L. var. lanceolata Bge. Cultivated yinchaihu (YCH) has become a main source of production to alleviate the shortage of wild plant resources, but it is not clear whether the metabolites of YCH change with the mode of production. In this study, the contents of methanol extracts, total sterols and total flavonoids in wild and cultivated YCH are compared. The metabolites were analyzed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography–tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The content of methanol extracts of the wild and cultivated YCH all exceeded the standard content of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. However, the contents of total sterols and total flavonoids in the wild YCH were significantly higher than those in the cultivated YCH. In total, 1586 metabolites were identified by mass spectrometry, and 97 were significantly different between the wild and cultivated sources, including β-sitosterol, quercetin derivatives as well as many newly discovered potential active components, such as trigonelline, arctiin and loganic acid. The results confirm that there is a rich diversity of metabolites in the wild and cultivated YCH, and provide a useful theoretical guidance for the evaluation of quality in the production of YCH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optical tweezers are key tools to trap and manipulate nanoparticles in a non-invasive way, and have been widely used in the biological and medical fields. We present an integrated multifunctional 2D plasmonic optical tweezer consisting of an array of graphene discs and the substrate circuit. The substrate circuit allows us to apply a bias voltage to configure the Fermi energy of graphene discs independently. Our work is based on numerical simulation of the finite element method. Numerical results show that the optical force is generated due to the localized surface plasmonic resonance (LSPR) mode of the graphene discs with Fermi Energy Ef = 0.6 eV under incident intensity I = 1 mW/μm2, which has a very low incident intensity compared to other plasmonic tweezers systems. The optical forces on the nanoparticles can be controlled by modulating the position of LSPR excitation. Controlling the position of LSPR excitation by bias voltage gates to configure the Fermi energy of graphene disks, the nanoparticles can be dynamically transported to arbitrary positions in the 2D plane. Our work is integrated and has multiple functions, which can be applied to trap, transport, sort, and fuse nanoparticles independently. It has potential applications in many fields, such as lab-on-a-chip, nano assembly, enhanced Raman sensing, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]