Studies On The Plasma Pharmacochemistry And Toxicity-decreasing For ChanSu

Traditional Chinese Medicines have become more popular amongst both the public and scientific communities and the toxic Chinese materia medicia(CMM) has been considered as an important kind of TCMs. CMMs are the combinations of active ingredients and toxic ingredients. By recognizing the toxic reaction of CMMs and its reason, we could promote rational use of toxic TCMs, so as to enhance the safety of them.ChanSu, the skin secretions of giant toads is a widely used traditional CMM. Although it has been applied in numerous clinical experiences for over 2000 years, for instance, sore throat, swells, pains, heart failure, skin problems and cancers, the bioactive compounds or toxic compounds in ChanSu were not fully understood.Approach of plasma pharmacochemistry was applied to analyze bioactive constituents in rat plasma after oral administration of ChanSu. High performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, including HPLC/ESI-IT-MS/MS and RRLC/ESI-Q-TOF-MS, were used for chemical profiling on samples of dosed plasma, ChanSu extract and control plasma. 20 prototype compounds and 4 metabolites derived from ChanSu were determined as potential bioactive components by comparative analysis of these chemical profiles. By MS/MS spectra and accurate molecular weight, majority of these bioactive components (19 prototype compounds and 2 metabolites) were structurally identified; moreover, 7 of them were confirmed by comparing their retention behaviors, MS and MS/MS spectra with those of reference chemicals. This study proposed a series of potential bioactive components of ChanSu, which is meaningful for the following new drug discovery from ChanSu and other traditional Chinese medicine.According to the result of plasma pharmacochemistry, we developed the method to study the differences before and after processing ChanSu, looking for the active components changing during the processing (contents changing, newly increasing or dissappearing) to explain the toxicity of ChanSu before and after processing.