National Engineering Research Center for Natural Medicines, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, PR China.
Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom. 2010 Nov 30;24(22):3335-9. doi: 10.1002/rcm.4777.
The chemical diversity of secondary metabolites in medicinal plant makes it a huge challenge to isolate the bioactive compounds from herbal extracts, so quick recognition of the bioactive ones is of vital importance for improving the efficiency of isolation. In this study, a ligand fishing experiment based on human serum albumin functionalized magnetic nano-particles (HSA-MNPs) was performed to probe the bioactive components in a traditional Chinese medicinal plant, Dioscorea panthaica. The minor compounds fished out by HSA-MNPs were identified by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), and then separated from the extract of the whole plant by one or two steps of column chromatography under the guidance of ESI-MS. Four biologically active compounds, progenin II, progenin III, dioscin and gracillin, were isolated much faster than in the normal lengthy phytochemical procedure. The present study demonstrates that biological macromolecule (protein, enzyme, receptor, et al.) functionalized MNPs may serve as baits to recognize bioactive small molecules in complex herbal extracts. It is expected that a macromolecule functionalized MNPs-based ligand fishing experiment coupled with ESI-MS may accelerate the process of identification and isolation of bioactive components from medicinal plants, and thus benefit the speed of drug discovery.
药用植物次生代谢产物的化学多样性使得从草药提取物中分离生物活性化合物成为一项巨大的挑战，因此快速识别生物活性化合物对于提高分离效率至关重要。在这项研究中，基于人血清白蛋白功能化磁性纳米粒子（HSA-MNPs）进行了配体钓取实验，以探究一种传统中药薯蓣 panthaica 中的生物活性成分。通过电喷雾电离质谱（ESI-MS）鉴定出 HSA-MNPs 钓取的微量化合物，然后根据 ESI-MS 的指导，通过一步或两步柱层析从全植物提取物中分离出来。与正常冗长的植物化学程序相比，更快地分离出四种具有生物活性的化合物，原薯蓣皂苷 II、原薯蓣皂苷 III、薯蓣皂苷和纤细薯蓣皂苷。本研究表明，生物大分子（蛋白质、酶、受体等）功能化的 MNPs 可以作为诱饵，识别复杂草药提取物中的生物活性小分子。预计基于生物大分子功能化 MNPs 的配体钓取实验与 ESI-MS 相结合，可能会加速从药用植物中鉴定和分离生物活性成分的过程，从而有利于药物发现的速度。
