Abstract
This paper concerns the study of the roots and rhizomes of
Licorice, one of the most popular Chinese herbal medicines, is, according to the Pharmacopeia of the People’s Republic of China, derived from the dried roots and rhizomes of
The incidence of neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, is increasing worldwide due to the increase in the number of the aged population; mortality from these diseases accounts for 17% of global deaths. 8,9 Considerable evidence has demonstrated that overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and neuroinflammation are closely related to the pathogenesis of several neurological diseases. 10 -12 Previous studies have evidenced the efficacy of licorice extract and its purified ingredients as antioxidation and anti-inflammation agents. 13 -15
Therefore, based on phenolic compounds which have been isolated from licorice in our previous studies,
16
our present study focused on investigations targeting neuroprotective effects of isolated compounds against inflammatory and oxidant damage

Structures of compounds 1
Results and Discussion
Structure Determination of Isolated Compounds
Compound
The structure of

Key 1H-1H COSY, HMBC correlations of compound 1.
The known compounds (
Anti-neuroinflammatory Activities In Vitro
It has been reported that neuroinflammation might drive the pathogenic process in several degenerative neurological disorders.
31
To obtain either new anti-neuroinflammatory agents or lead compounds for degenerative neurological diseases, all isolated compounds (
IC50 Values of Compounds 1
aCurcumin was used as a positive control. Data are presented based on three experiments.

The cellular viabilities of BV-2 cells treated with compounds 1
Antioxidant Activities In Vitro
6-Hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) is a dopaminergic neurotoxin, the toxic effects of which have been linked to overproduction of ROS, such as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), superoxide anion and hydroxyl radical. Under physiological conditions 6-OHDA is rapidly and nonenzymatically oxidized by molecular oxygen to form H2O2 and the corresponding
The protective effect of liquiritin and isoliquiritin on corticosterone-induced neurotoxicity in rat adrenal pheochromocytoma PC12 cells has been proved.
34,35
For the exploration of neuroprotective activities in isolated compounds with similar structures as liquiritin (

The cellular viabilities of PC12 cells treated with compounds 2, 3, 4, 5, and 12. Representative graphs are from three independent experiments, with error bars representing SD values.

PC12 cells treated with indicated concentrations of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 12 for 24 hours and then exposed to either H2O2 (500 μmol/L) or 6-OHDA (200 μmol/L) for 12 hours. The cell viability was evaluated by the MTT assay. Representative graphs are from three independent experiments, with error bars representing SD values.**,
Experimental
General Experiments
The UV spectra were recorded on a Lambda 25 UV-Visible spectrophotometer (Perkin-Elmer, USA), 1D and 2D NMR spectra on a Bruker AVANCE AV III-400 instrument (Bruker, Switzerland, 100 MHz for 13C and 400 MHz for 1H) with tetramethylsilane (TMS) as an internal reference at room temperature, and HR-ESI-MS on an Agilent LC-QTOF-MS (1290, 6560) spectrometer (Palo Alto, CA, USA). Medium pressure liquid chromatography (MPLC) was run using a NP7000 pump with a NU3000 UV detector (Hanbon Sci. & Tech, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China) and a column (26 × 460 mm) filled with octadecylsilyl (75 C18-OPN, Nacalai Tesque, Kyoto, Japan). HPLC separations were carried out on an EasyChrom system, equipped with the same detector as the MPLC system and a 5C18-PAQ (10 × 250 mm, 10 µm) column (Waters, Milford, USA). Column chromatography was performed with silica gel (100, 200 mesh, Qingdao Haiyang Chemical Co., Ltd., People’s Republic of China) and two kinds of macroporous resin (D101; AB-8, 16‐60 mesh, Solarbio, Beijing, People’s Republic of China).
Plant Material
The roots and rhizomes of
Extraction and Isolation
The dried roots and rhizomes (10 kg) of
Fraction B was chromatographed on an open macroporous resin column (D101, 16‐60 mesh, 10 × 70 cm, MeOH/H2O, 0:100 to 100:0, v/v) to obtain six fractions (Fr. B1-Fr. B6). Numerous crystals formed during the separation were purified through recrystallization to obtain compound
Fr. B3 was fractionated by MPLC with an ODS column with 25% to 65% MeOH in H2O as eluent to afford 5 sub-fractions (Fr. B3A-Fr. B3E). Using semipreparative HPLC (5C18-PAQ column, 10 × 250 mm) for the purification of these sub-fractions, compound
Fr. B4 was separated by silica gel column chromatography with DCM/MeOH/H2O (90:10:1 to 50:50:5, v/v) to give six fractions (Fr. B4A-Fr. B4F). Fr. B4B was subjected to MPLC over ODS eluting with a step gradient of 25% to 65% methanol (MeOH) in H2O to afford 5 sub-fractions (Fr. B4B1-Fr. B4B5). Fr. B4B5 was further purified by semipreparative HPLC (47% MeOH in H2O) to afford compounds
Fraction C was chromatographed on an open macroporous resin column (AB-8, 16‐60 mesh, 10 cm×70 cm, MeOH/H2O, 0:100 to 100:0, v/v) to obtain six fractions (Fr. C1-Fr. C6). Fr. C4 was purified by crystallization to yield compound
3,4-Dihydroxyquinoline 4-
1H (400 MHz) and 13C (100 MHz) NMR Spectroscopic Data for Compound
Acid Hydrolysis of 1 and Determination of Sugar
Compound
Bioassay for Anti-neuroinflammatory Effects In Vitro
The anti-neuroinflammatory effects in vitro were examined by inhibiting NO release in LPS-induced murine microglial BV-2 cells. The cells were cultured at 37 °C in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM), supplemented with 10% (v/v) inactivated fetal bovine serum (FBS) and 1% (v/v) penicillin/streptomycin under a water-saturated atmosphere of 95% air and in a humidified incubator containing 5% CO2. BV-2 cells were seeded in 96-well culture plates (2 × 104 cells/well) and preincubated for 24 hours. The cells were incubated for 24 hours either with or without 1 µg/mL of LPS (Beijing Solarbio Science & Technology Co., Ltd., People’s Republic of China) in either the absence or presence of the isolated compounds. Curcumin was used as a positive control. After treatment with various concentrations (10, 25, 50 µg/mL) of compounds and curcumin, the culture supernatant of cells (100 µL) was mixed with an equal volume of Griess reagent (1:1 mixture of 0.1% N-(1-naphtyl)ethylenediamine in H2O and 1% sulfanilamide in 5% H3PO4) at room temperature for 20 minutes. NO concentration was quantified by the absorbance of the mixture read on a Tecan Spark 20M microplate reader (Tecan Inc., Swiss) at 550 nm, using a standard curve of known nitrite concentration versus absorbance at the same wavelength. The IC50 values were determined with SPSS22.0 software from the corresponding experiments performed in triplicate.
Bioassay for Antioxidant Effects In Vitro
The antioxidant effects in vitro were tested for the protection against the H2O2 or 6-OHDA-induced injury model in rat adrenal pheochromocytoma PC12 cells. The cells were cultured in DMEM supplemented with 10% FBS, 2 mM glutamine, and 100 units/mL penicillin/streptomycin, maintained in a humidified atmosphere of 5% CO2 at 37 °C. PC12 cells (1 × 104 cells/well) were seeded in 96-well plates for 24 hours followed by the addition of indicated concentrations (20, 50 μmol/L) of compounds and incubated for another 24 hours. Afterwards, the cytotoxicity of compounds was determined by the MTT assay. Briefly, cells treated with DMSO alone were used as controls. At the end of the treatment, 10 µL MTT (5 mg/mL) was added to each well and incubated for an additional 4 hours at 37 °C. An extraction buffer (100 µL, 10% SDS, 5% isobutanol, 0.1% HCl) was added, and the cells incubated overnight at 37 °C. The absorbance was measured at 570 nm using a microplate reader (Thermo Scientific Multiskan GO, Finland). For the H2O2 or 6-OHDA injury model, PC12 cells (1 × 104 cells/well) were plated in 96-well plates and allowed to adhere for 24 hours and then treated with different concentrations (10, 20, 50 μmol/L) of compounds without distinct cytotoxicity for 24 hours. After replacing with fresh medium containing 500 μmol/L H2O2 or 200 μmol/L 6-OHDA for 12 hours, the cell viability was determined by the MTT assay.
Supplemental Material
Supplementary Material 1 - Supplemental material for Glycoside Compounds From Glycyrrhiza uralensis and Their Neuroprotective Activities
Supplemental material, Supplementary Material 1, for Glycoside Compounds From
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
Authors are thankful to the Scientific Research and Experiment Center of the School of Pharmacy, Lanzhou University, and Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences for the measurement of NMR spectra.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by a grant from the Major International S & T Cooperation Project, Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (2016YFE0129000); Research project of Gansu Provincial Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (GZK-2015-21); The Natural Science Foundation of Gansu Province (20JR5RA311) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (lzujbky-2017-k26).
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
