• CELLMED
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.12.1-12.5
• /
• 2020

Higher incidences of adverse reaction associated with the prolonged use of synthetic drugs has once again increased the faith of humans in the traditional systems of medicine and motivated them to return back towards the clinical proven remedies for the treatment. It is also true that number of modern medications used in the present scenario, were developed from various plants. In Unani System of medicine, numerous herbal drugs are mentioned for medicinal purpose. Siras (Albizia lebbeck (L.) Benth.) is one of them. It is found all over India. Almost all parts of this plant are used for the treatment of ailments such as migraine, conjunctivitis, diarrhea, jaundice, skin problems, asthma etc. Many chemical constituents have been isolated from Albizia lebbeck such as lebbekannin, echinocystic acid, flavonoids, Linoleic acid, saponins etc. This review highlights the medicinal properties and therapeutic uses of Albizia lebbeck and scientific studies conducted on the drug in human and animal models that will provide the further research direction.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.245-249
• /
• 2011

Amphetamine, a synthetic psychostimulant, is transported by the dopamine transporter (DAT) to the cytosol and increases the exchange of extracellular amphetamine by intracellular dopamine. Recently, we reported that the phosphorylation levels of ezrin-radixin-moesin (ERM) proteins are regulated by psychostimulant drugs in the nucleus accumbens, a brain area important for drug addiction. However, the significance of ERM proteins phosphorylation in response to drugs of abuse has not been fully investigated. In this study, using PC12 cells as an in vitro cell model, we showed that amphetamine increases ERM proteins phosphorylation and protein kinase C (PKC) ${\beta}$ inhibitor, but not extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) or phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases (PI3K) inhibitors, abolished this effect. Further, we observed that DAT inhibitor suppressed amphetamine-induced ERM proteins phosphorylation in PC12 cells. These results suggest that $PKC{\beta}$-induced DAT regulation may be involved in amphetmaine-induced ERM proteins phosphorylation.

• Advances in Traditional Medicine
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.1-13
• /
• 2009

Medicinal herbs are significant source of synthetic and herbal drugs. In the commercial market, medicinal herbs are used as raw drugs, extracts or tinctures. Isolated active constituents are used for applied research. For the last few decades, phytochemistry (study of plants) has been making rapid progress and herbal products are becoming popular. According to Ayurveda, the ancient healing system of India, the classical texts of Ayurveda, Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita were written around 1000 B.C. The Ayurvedic Materia Medica includes 600 medicinal plants along with therapeutics. Herbs like turmeric, fenugreek, ginger, garlic and holy basil are integral part of Ayurvedic formulations. The formulations incorporate single herb or more than two herbs (poly-herbal formulations). Medicinal herb contains multitude of chemical compounds like alkaloids, glycosides, saponins, resins, oleoresins, sesquiterpene, lactones and oils (essential and fixed). Today there is growing interest in chemical composition of plant based medicines. Several bioactive constituents have been isolated and studied for pharmacological activity. R. cordifolia is an important medicinal plant commonly used in the traditional and Ayurvedic system of medicine for treatment of different ailments. This review illustrates its major constituents, pharmacological actions substantiating the claims made about this plant in the traditional system of medicine and its clinical applications.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.27-35
• /
• 1981

Etomidoline is a new synthetic atropine-like drug. The present investigation aimed to study the combined effects of etomidoline and neofopam hydrochloride which has an analgesic and muscle relaxant activity, compared with the effects of each drugs. Acute toxicities (ID$_{50}$) in mouse were 132mg/Kg (p.o.) and 49mg/Kg (i.p.) when combination ratio of etomidoline and neofopam was 1:5 and 103 mg/Kg (p.o.) and 30mg/Kg (i.p.) with the ratio of 1:10. Etomidoline showed more potent anticholinergic effects than neofopam in the isolated rat intestine. Whereas, antibarium effects were twice as active with neofopam than with etomidoline. When etomidoline and neofopam were added in combination ratio of 1 : 5, papaverine-like avtivity was increased, but no changes of anticholinergic effect were observed. Analgesic effect was measured by the anti-writhing method of Whittle in mice. Both of the concurrent and single administration of etomidoline and nefopam reduced significantly the writhing number and the effect of the concurrent administration was more active than that of single, and 1 : 5 combination was slightly more potent than 1:10. Each drug or the combined drug was administered to mice and observed the change of the pupil size. Pupil sizes were increased with each drug and with combined drug, although there were no significant differences between the each group of drugs. However, those effects were less than that of atropine sulfate.e.

• Clean Technology
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.75-81
• /
• 2016

As the quality of life has improved, the desire for the safety and quality of the foods and drugs has been gradually increasing. For safety and quality management in foods, drugs, health management, agriculture, environmental conservation, and the industrial fields, the demand for quickly and accurately measuring various chemicals has been increasing. As well, the desire for self-diagnosis of one's own health state and self-examining the safety of environment has been gradually increasing. Optical Isomers can have very different physiological effects on human beings. One isomer can exhibit desirable pharmacological, pharmacodynamic, pharmacokinetic and physiological properties, while the other isomer can exhibit undesirable and toxic properties toward living organisms, especially human beings. And they can exhibit different activities in chemical and biotechnological processes. Although the majority of commercially available drugs are now both synthetic and chiral materials, a most chiral drugs are still marketed as racemic drugs. Thus, to avoid possible undesirable side effects from chiral drugs, more effective methods for separating and recognizing chiral compounds are urgently needed. In this report, we investigated the overall developing trends of the chiral drug separation and analysis technology by using molecular recognition.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.50-53
• /
• 2012

After success of sildenafil for the treatment of erectile dysfunction, a large number of its analogues have been approved from FDA. Recently, the illegal dietary supplements which include sildenafil, vardenafil, tadalafil, or analogues of these drugs as ingredient have been widely distributed. Therefore, the determination of the residue of synthetic phosphodiesterase- 5 (PDE-5) inhibitors in dietary supplements is highly required due to indiscriminate and unintentional overdose caused nausea, chest pains, fainting and irregular heartbeat. In this paper, we report a rapid and sensitive analytical method for the simultaneous determination of nine phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors by liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry. The present method was found to be accurate and reproducible with 40 ${\mu}g$/g of the limit of quantification for the nine PDE-5 inhibitors. The developed method can be successfully applied to the analysis of the seven illegal dietary supplements.

• Biomedical Science Letters
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.137-142
• /
• 2004

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor $\gamma$ (PPAR${\gamma}$) is the molecular target for a class of drugs, the antidiabetic thiazolidnediones (TZDs). The heterodimer of PPAR${\gamma}$ with retinoid X receptor (RXR) plays a central role in the regulation of adipogenesis and insulin sensitization. We synthesized two chemicals, DANA87 and DANA88, sharing structural characteristics with TZDs. Given this structural similarity, it was hypothesized that DANA87 and DANA88 may act as PPAR$\gamma$ ligands. In transient transfection assays, DANA87 and DANA88 caused slight increases in the endogenous expression of a luciferase reporter gene containing the PPAR responsive element in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. However, DANA87 and DANA88 significantly inhibited troglitazone-induced reporter gene activation when cells were treated with a combination of DANA87 or DANA 88 and troglitazone, one of the TZDs that activate PPAR$\gamma$. These results suggest that DANA87 and DANA88 are not only weak agonists of PPAR${\gamma}$ transactivation, but also competitively antagonize troglitazone-induced PPAR$\gamma$ reporter activity.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.1039-1046
• /
• 2005

The salt resistance of antibacterial activity and synergistic effect with clinically used antibiotic agents are critical factors in developing effective peptide antibiotic drugs. For this reason, we investigated the resistance of antibacterial activity to antagonism induced by NaCl and $MgCl_2$ and the synergistic effect of P20 with cefotaxime. P20 is a 20-residue synthetic peptide derived from a cecropin A (CA)-melittin(ME) hybrid peptide. In this study, P20 was found to have potent antibacterial activity against clinically isolated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains without hemolytic activity against human erythrocytes. The combination study revealed that P20 in combination with cefotaxime showed synergistic antibacterial activity in an energy-dependent manner. We also confirmed the synergism between P20 and cefotaxime by fluorescence-activated flow cytometric analysis by staining bacterial cells with propidium iodide (PI) and bis-(1,3-dibutylbarbituric acid) trimethine oxonol (BOX). This study suggests that P20 may be useful as a therapeutic antibiotic peptide with synergistic effect in combination with conventional antibiotic agents.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 1999.10a
• /
• pp.90-109
• /
• 1999

Many plant species are used in Malaysia in folk medicine for the treatment of cancer. This paper presents some of these species with details on other ethnopharmacological uses, the known bioactivities and some chemical constituents of each of the species given. It is normal practice in traditional medicine that one species of plant is used to treat various ailments. Thus the plant species listed are all used to treat cancer but have various other ethnophrmacological uses as well, some with few other uses and rest with many other uses. Information on bioactivities of each species resulting from tests on human and experimental animals are also given. Proven bioactivities give strength to ethnopharmacological claims on the efficacies of plant resources in the treatment of cancer and various other ailments but will but will not necessarily lead to the production of new pharmaceutical drugs. Many of the known chemical constituents of each species are given. This shows the richness and variety of chemicals containes in each of the species listed, The chemicals listed may or may not prove to be important in the pharmaceutical sciences but is an indication of what each species contatin in thrms of plant chemicals, It is a well known fact that many of the pharmaceutical prescriptions in present day use are of plant origin and semi-synthetic or fully synthetic chemicals produced using knowledge gained from studies of phytochemicals. Thus the paper presented will give useful information and also shows the richness of plant species that have high potentials for the development of anti-cancer resources from plants in Malaysia.

• Macromolecular Research
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.303-307
• /
• 2008

A series of biodegradable polymeric scaffolds was prepared by using a combination of natural (collagen) and synthetic (poly(caprolactone)) (PCL) polymers in various compositions. These scaffolds were soft, spongy, porous and transparent in nature and were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The entrapment efficiency and drug release activity of the scaffolds were analyzed using penicillin and tetracycline as antimicrobial drugs. The drug release activity of the scaffolds with various combinations of collagen and PCL were studied by measuring the optical density in a spectrophotometer at the following time intervals: 1,4, 24, 48 and 60 h. These scaffolds showed better and continuous drug release for up to 60 h. Even after such a long duration, a portion of the drug remained entrapped in the scaffolds, indicating that they can be utilized for wound healing applications.