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Zingiber rubens Roxb., and Zingiber zerumbet (L.) Smith were collected respectively from Nghe An, Province and Ha Tinh, Province, Vietnam. The root essential oils were obtained by water distillation and analyzed by Gas chromatography (GC) and Gas chromatography coupled with Mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The most abundant components of Z. rubens were ()-citral (30.1%), camphene (9.7%), β-phellandrene (7.5%) and 1,8-cineole (7.0%) and zingiberene (5.3%). The main oil constituents of Z. zerumbet were ()-citral (26.1%), camphene (16.3%), sabinene (14.6%), zingiberene (7.2%) and lavandulyl acetate (6.7%). This species has low zerumbone (1.2%) content.

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Objectives: Central nervous system (CNS) infections are common causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. We aimed to discover protein biomarkers that could rapidly and accurately identify the likely cause of the infections, essential for clinical management and improving outcome. Methods: We applied liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry on 45 cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from a cohort of adults with and without CNS infections to discover potential diagnostic biomarkers. We then validated the diagnostic performance of a selected biomarker candidate in an independent cohort of 364 consecutively treated adults with CNS infections admitted to a referral hospital in Vietnam.Results: In the discovery cohort, we identified lipocalin 2 (LCN2) as a potential biomarker of bacterial meningitis (BM) other than tuberculous meningitis. The analysis of the validation cohort showed that LCN2 could discriminate BM from other CNS infections (including tuberculous meningitis, cryptococcal meningitis and virus/antibody-mediated encephalitis), with sensitivity of 0.88 (95% confident interval (CI), 0.77e0.94), specificity of 0.91 (95% CI, 0.88e0.94) and diagnostic odds ratio of 73.8 (95% CI, 31.8 e171.4). LCN2 outperformed other CSF markers (leukocytes, glucose, protein and lactate) commonly used in routine care worldwide. The combination of LCN2, CSF leukocytes, glucose, protein and lactate resulted in the highest diagnostic performance for BM (area under the receiver operating characteristics curve, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.93e0.99). Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD020510. Conclusions: LCN2 is a sensitive and specific biomarker for discriminating BM from a broad spectrum of other CNS infections. A prospective study is needed to assess the diagnostic utility of LCN2 in the diagnosis and management of CNS infections.

Essential oils obtained from hydrodistillation of three medicinal plants grown in Vietnam were analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The monoterpene hydrocarbons, α-pinene (50.2%), β-pinene (23.6%) and limonene (5.3%) were the most abundant constituents of the rhizome oil of Zingiber collinsii Mood & Theilade (Zingiberaceae). The main compounds of the stem oil of Croton kongensis Gagnep., (Euphorbiaceae) were benzyl benzoate (12.7%), β-selinene (9.8%), bulnesol (8.0%) and 5,6,7,8-tetrahydroquinoxaline (7.4%). The leaf oil of Goniothalamus albiflous Ban., consisted mainly of α-pinene (26.2%), caryophyllene oxide (10.6%) and 1,8-cineole (9.7%). The composition of the oils of Zingiber collinsii and Croton kongensis was being reported for the first time.