Coptisine is a natural small‐molecular compound extracted from Coptis chinensis (CC) with a history of using for thousands of years. This work aimed at summarizing coptisine's activity and providing advice for its clinical use. We analysed the online papers in the database of SciFinder, Web of Science, PubMed, Google scholar and CNKI by setting keywords as ‘coptisine’ in combination of ‘each pivotal pathway target’. Based on the existing literatures, we find (a) coptisine exerted potential to be an anti‐cancer, anti‐inflammatory, CAD ameliorating or anti‐bacterial drug through regulating the signalling transduction of pathways such as NF‐κB, MAPK, PI3K/Akt, NLRP3 inflammasome, RANKL/RANK and Beclin 1/Sirt1. However, we also (b) observe that the plasma concentration of coptisine demonstrates obvious non‐liner relationship with dosage, and even the highest dosage used in animal study actually cannot reach the minimum concentration level used in cell experiments owing to the poor absorption and low availability of coptisine. We conclude (a) further investigations can focus on coptisine's effect on caspase‐1‐involved inflammasome assembling and pyroptosis activation, as well as autophagy. (b) Under circumstance of promoting coptisine availability by pursuing nano‐ or microrods strategies or applying salt‐forming process to coptisine, can it be introduced to clinical trial.

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To explored the difference of goose fatty liver formation induced-by different types of sugar from the intestinal physiology and the gut microflora, an integrated analysis of intestinal physiology and gut microbiota metagenomes was performed using samples collected from the geese including the normal-feeding geese and the overfed geese which were overfed with maize flour or overfeeding dietary supplementation with 10% sugar (glucose, fructose or sucrose, respectively), respectively. The results showed that the foie gras weight of the fructose group and the sucrose group was heavier ( P < 0.05) than other groups. Compared with the control group, the ileum weight was significantly higher ( P < 0.01), and the cecum weight was significantly lower in the sugar treatment groups ( P < 0.001). Compared with the control group, the ratio of villi height to crypt depth in the fructose group was the highest in jejunum ( P < 0.05); the trypsin activity of the ileum was higher in the fructose group and the sucrose group ( P < 0.05). At the phylum level, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes were the main intestinal flora of geese; and the abundance of Firmicutes in the jejunum was higher in the sugar treatment groups than that of the maize flour group. At the genus level, the abundance of Lactobacillus in the jejunum was higher ( P < 0.05) in the sugar treatment groups than that of the maize flour group. In conclusion, forced-feeding diet supplementation with sugar induced stronger digestion and absorption capacity, increased the abundance of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes and the abundance of Lactobacillus (especially fructose and sucrose) in the gut. So, the fructose and sucrose had higher induction on hepatic steatosis in goose fatty liver formation.

Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs) contain multiple active ingredients, such as polyphenols, flavonoids, polysaccharides, due to which CHMs have many biological properties for example antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-lipase. CHMs can promote intramuscular fat deposition, increase the content of fatty acids and free amino acids in pork, which increases the nutritional value and health-promoting properties of meat. However, there are still some problems with the application of CHMs in pig production to improve meat quality. Firstly, there are many active ingredients, and their identification and study on their interactions are necessary. Secondly, the presence of harmful ingredients limits CHMs popularization and application. This review summarizes the current applications of CHMs in pig production in order to increase meat quality, and compares their effects on meat quality, which provides a theoretical screen for effective CHMs and their combinations. In brief, it is necessary to distinguish and find CHMs that have positive effects on meat quality and growth performance.