Metabolomics is a powerful new technology that allows for the assessment of global metabolic profiles in easily accessible biofluids and biomarker discovery in order to distinguish between diseased and nondiseased status information. Deciphering the molecular networks that distinguish diseases may lead to the identification of critical biomarkers for disease aggressiveness. However, current diagnostic methods cannot predict typical Jaundice syndrome (JS) in patients with liver disease and little is known about the global metabolomic alterations that characterize JS progression. Emerging metabolomics provides a powerful platform for discovering novel biomarkers and biochemical pathways to improve diagnostic, prognostication, and therapy. Therefore, the aim of this study is to find the potential biomarkers from JS disease by using a nontarget metabolomics method, and test their usefulness in human JS diagnosis. Multivariate data analysis methods were utilized to identify the potential biomarkers. Interestingly, 44 marker metabolites contributing to the complete separation of JS from matched healthy controls were identified. Metabolic pathways (Impact-value>0.10) including alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism and synthesis and degradation of ketone bodies were found to be disturbed in JS patients. This study demonstrates the possibilities of metabolomics as a diagnostic tool in diseases and provides new insight into pathophysiologic mechanisms. Metabolomics, an omic science in systems biology, is the comprehensive profiling of metabolic changes occurring in living systems (1). It attempts to capture global changes and overall physiological status in biochemical networks and pathways in order to elucidate sites of perturbations, and has shown great promise as a means to identify biomarkers of diseases (2, 3). One area of considerable interest in the field of metabolomics is the detection of potential biomarkers associated with diseases, and the metabolic profiling could provide global changes of endogenous metabolites of patients. Metabolomics is the study of metabolic pathways and the measurement of unique biochemical molecules generated in a living system. It could facilitate biomarker discovery by distinguishing between diseased and nondiseased patients. Biomarker metabolites can also be therapeutic targets (4). Detecting changes in metabolite concentrations reveals the range of biochemical effects induced by a disease condition.

A responsive drug delivery system (DDS) for oxaliplatin (OX) has been designed with a view to overcoming several common drawbacks associated with this widely used anticancer agent, including fast degradation/deactivation in the blood stream, lack of tumor selectivity, and low bioavailability.

The total synthesis of a family of (E)-9,10-dehydro derivatives of epothilone D (i.e., 12,13-desoxyepothilone B) is described. The route is particularly concise and amenable to production of new congeners. Furthermore, the chemistry described herein constitutes a major simplification in the total synthesis of EpoD, which is in human clinical trials. This new family of epothilones shows major advantages in terms of their potency and pharmacostability relative to the wild-type saturated analogues in the D series. From the perspective of compound availability through synthesis, potency, and pharmacokinetic properties, these compounds could well warrant advancement to clinical evaluation in humans.

The mother and lateral root of Aconitum carmichaelii Debx, named "Chuanwu" (CW) and "Fuzi", respectively, has been used to relieve joint pain and treat rheumatic diseases for over 2000 years. However, it has a very narrow therapeutic range, and the toxicological risk of its usage remains very high. The traditional Chinese processing approach, Paozhi (detoxifying measure),can decompose poisonous Aconitum alkaloids into less or nontoxic derivatives and plays an important role in detoxification. The difference in metabolomic characters among the crude and processed preparations is still unclear, limited by the lack of sensitive and reliable biomarkers. Therefore, this paper was designed to investigate comprehensive metabolomic characters of the crude and its processed products by UPLC-Q-TOF-HDMS combined with pattern recognition methods and ingenuity pathway analysis (IPA). The significant difference in metabolic profiles and changes of metabolite biomarkers of interest between the crude and processed preparations were well observed. The underlying regulations of Paozhi-perturbed metabolic pathways are discussed according to the identified metabolites, and four metabolic pathways are identified using IPA. The present study demonstrates that metabolomic analysis could greatly facilitate and provide useful information to further comprehensively understand the pharmacological activity and potential toxicity of processed Aconite roots in the clinic.

We provide a full account of the discovery of the (E)-9,10-dehydro derivatives of 12,13-desoxyepothilone B (dEpoB), a new class of antitumor agents with promising in vivo preclinical properties. The compounds, which are to date not available by modification of any of the naturally occurring epothilones, were discovered through total chemical synthesis. We describe how our investigations of ring-closing metathesis reactions in epothilone settings led to the first and second generation syntheses of (E)-9,10-dehydro-12,13-desoxyepothilone congener 6. With further modifications, the synthesis was applied to reach a 26-trifluoro derivative compound (see compound 7). To conduct such studies and in anticipation of future development needs, the total synthesis which led to the initial discovery of compound 7 was simplified significantly. The total synthesis methodology used to reach compound 7 was then applied to reach more readily formulated compounds, bearing hydroxy and amino functionality on the 21-position (see compounds 45, 62, and 63). Following extensive in vitro evaluations of these new congeners, compound 7 was nominated for in vivo evaluations in xenograft models. The data provided herein demonstrate a promising therapeutic efficacy, activity against large tumors, nonrelapseability, and oral activity. These results have identified compound 7 as a particularly promising compound for clinical development. The excellent, totally synthetic, route to 7 makes such a program quite feasible.