Screening and quantification of anticancer compounds in traditional Chinese medicine by hollow fiber cell fishing and hollow fiber liquid/solid- phase microextraction

Hollow fiber cell fishing, based on HepG-2, SKOV-3, and ACHN cancer cells, and hollow fiber liquid/solid microextraction with HPLC were developed and introduced for researching the anticancer activity of Rhizoma Curcumae Longae, Radix Curcumae, and Rhizoma Curcumae. The structures of curcumin, demethoxycurcumin, and bisdemethoxycurcumin screened were identified and their contents were determined. The compound target fishing factors and cell apoptosis rates under the effect of the three medicines were determined. The binding sites (cell membrane and cell organelle) and binding target (phospholipase C) on the cell were researched. Hollow fiber liquid/solid-phase microextraction mechanism was analyzed and expounded. Before the application, cell seeding time, growth state and survival rate, compound nonspecific binding, positive and negative controls, repeatability in hollow fiber cell fishing with high-performance liquid chromatography; extraction solvent, sample pH, salt concentration, agitation speed, extraction time, temperature and sample volume in hollow fiber liquid/solid-phase microextraction with high-performance liquid chromatography were investigated. The results demonstrated that the proposed strategy is a simple and quick method to identify bioactive compounds at the cellular level as well as determine their contents (particularly trace levels of the bioactive compounds), analyze multicompound and multitarget entirety effects, and elucidate the efficacious material base in traditional medicine.