Zhang Lin’s research while affiliated with Central South University and other places

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a cluster of metabolic abnormalities associated with an increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases or type II diabetes. Till now, the etiology of MetS is complex and still unknown. Metabolic profiling is a powerful tool for exploring metabolic perturbations and potential biomarkers, thus may shed light on the pathophysiological mechanism of diseases. In this study, fatty acid profiling was employed to exploit the metabolic disturbances and discover potential biomarkers of MetS. Fatty acid profiles of serum samples from metabolic syndrome patients and healthy controls were first analyzed by gas chromatography–selected ion monitoring–mass spectrometry (GC–SIM–MS), a robust method for quantitation of fatty acids. Then, the supervised multivariate statistical method of random forests (RF) was used to establish a classification and prediction model for MetS, which could assist the diagnosis of MetS. Furthermore, canonical correlation analysis (CCA) was employed to investigate the relationships between free fatty acids (FFAs) and clinical parameters. As a result, several FFAs, including C16:1n-9c, C20:1n-9c and C22:4n-6c, were identified as potential biomarkers of MetS. The results also indicated that high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides (TG) and fasting blood glucose (FBG) were the most important parameters which were closely correlated with FFAs disturbances of MetS, thus they should be paid more attention in clinical practice for monitoring FFAs disturbances of MetS than waist circumference (WC) and systolic blood pressure/diastolic blood pressure (SBP/DBP). The results have demonstrated that metabolic profiling by GC–SIM–MS combined with RF and CCA may be a useful tool for discovering the perturbations of serum FFAs and possible biomarkers for MetS.

Metabolomics is a rapidly growing field in the comprehensive understanding of cellular and organism-specific responses associated with perturbations induced by medicines, chemicals and environment. Blood matrices are frequently used in clinical and biological studies. In this study, we compared metabolic profiling between rat plasma and serum using complementary platforms of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-quadruple time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF-MS). The sample types that were tested included plasma prepared with K2 EDTA and serum collected using venous blood collection protocols. The results of peak area variation for each detected metabolite/feature in the quality control samples showed a good reproducibility in LC-QTOF-MS and better reproducibility in GC-MS. In GC-MS analysis: (a) 25.8% of the defined metabolites differed serum from plasma profiling (t-test, p < 0.05); and (b) serum possessed higher sensitivity than plasma for its generally higher peak intensity in the metabolic profiling. In LC-QTOF-MS analysis, 13 (in positive ion mode) and seven (in negative ion mode) important metabolites were identified as mainly contributing to the separation between serum and plasma. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Houttuynia cordata Thunb is an important medicinal plant widely distributed in East Asia. The collected information is an attempt to cover recent developments in the pharmacology, phytochemistry and quality control of this species. During the past several decades, the medicinally important phyto-constituents have been identified including essential oil, flavonoids and other polyphenols, fatty acids and alkaloids. A survey of the literatures shows H. cordata possesses a variety of pharmacological activities including antiviral, antitumor, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidative effects. Little attempt has been done to review the techniques used for its quality control. Future efforts should concentrate more on in vitro, in vivo studies and clinical trials in order to confirm traditional wisdom in the light of a rational phytotherapy. The information summarized here is intended to serve as a reference tool to practitioners in the fields of ethnopharmacology and natural products chemistry.