Jie Ren

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | UNC · Eshelman School of Pharmacy

Polyphenolic compounds (such as quercetin and resveratrol) possess potential medicinal values due to their various bioactivities, but poor water solubility hinders their health benefits to humankind. Glycosylation is a well-known post-modification method to biosynthesize natural product glycosides with improved hydrophilicity. Glycosylation has pro...

The aging global population is increasingly affected by osteoporosis (OP), which is one of the most significant threats to the elderly. Moreover, its prevention and treatment situations have become increasingly severe. Therefore, it is imperative to develop alternatives or complementary drugs for preventing and treating osteoporosis. Kidney tonifyi...

Berberidis Cortex is rich in alkaloids, and many of them have antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and hypoglycemic activities. However, few research studies have focused on the quantitative analysis of multiple components from Berberidis Cortex. In this study, a new quality evaluation strategy for Berberidis Cortex was developed and validated by high...

Four new 2′-hydroxyflavone glycosides, namely hydroxyflavone-2’-O-β-D-glucuronide (1), hydroxyflavone-2’-O-α-L-rhamnoside (2), hydroxyflavone-2’-O-β-D-glucoside (3), and hydroxyflavone-2’-O-4”-O-methyl-β-D-glucoside (4), were biosynthesized through microbial glycosylation using Streptomyces coeruleorubidus NRRL B-2569, Streptomyces toxytricini NRRL...

Glycosylation is an effective way to increase the polarity of natural products. UDP-glucuronyltransferases (UGTs) are commonly observed and extensively studied in phase II drug metabolism. However, UGTs in microorganisms are not well studied, which hampered the utilization of this type of enzyme in microbial glucuronidation of natural products. Scr...

Glycosylation is an effective way to improve the water solubility of natural products. In this work, a novel glycosyltransferase gene (BbGT) was discovered from Beauveria bassiana ATCC 7159 and heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli. The purified enzyme was functionally characterized through in vitro enzymatic reactions as a UDP-glucosyltrans...

Plant natural products have been particularly important due to their use in food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industries. In particular, Traditional Chinese Medicine provides a precious potential for the discovery of bioactive natural products and development of novel modern medicines. However, the existing production methods for plant natural pro...

A putative aromatic amino acid ammonia-lyase gene (named Pl-pal) was discovered in Photorhabdus luminescens DSM 3368. BLAST and phylogenetic analyses predicted that this enzyme is a histidine ammonia-lyase, whereas sequence alignment suggested that it is more likely a phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL). This gene was amplified from P. luminescens an...

A new anthraquinone, 1,6-dihydroxy-2-hydroxymethyl-5-methoxy-9,10-anthracenedione (1), along with four known compounds, including 1,2-dimethoxyanthraquinone (2), morindone-5-methylether (3), scopoletin (4), and fraxidin (5) were isolated from the methylene chloride extract of the stem bark of Morinda lucida Benth. Structure elucidation was accompli...

FR901533 (1, also known as WS79089B), WS79089A (2), and WS79089C (3) are polycyclic aromatic natural products with promising inhibitory activity to endothelin-converting enzymes. In this work, we isolated five tridecaketide products from Streptosporangium roseum No. 79089, including 1–3, benaphthamycin (4) and a novel FR901533 analogue (5). The str...

A new bis-indole alkaloid, named arundaline (1), a new phenylpropanoid, named arundalcohol (2), and four known alkaloids, N-acetyltryptamine (3), trans-N-(p-coumaroyl)serotonin (4), trans-N-feruloylserotonin (5), and tuberosine B (6), were isolated from 70% aqueous ethanol extracts of the rhizomes of Arundo donax L. Their structures were elucidated...

Objective This study was conducted to develop an method for identification of Trachemys scripta elegans (Ba Xi Gui, 巴西龟) shell glue from Chinemys reevesii (Zhong Hua Cao Gui, 中华草龟) shell glue. Methods In this research, an ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF/MS) method coupled...

Cyclopiperettine, a new amide, was isolated from essential oil of Piper nigrum L.Together with ten known compounds, including amides, monoterpenoids, and sesquiterpenoids. The structure of cyclopiperettine was established by 1D-and 2D-NMR and GC-MS techniques. Known compounds were identified as α-humulene, β-caryophyllene, caryophyllenol-II, β-elem...

A novel tropoloisoquinoline alkaloid, neotatarine (1), was isolated from the 95% ethanol extract of the rhizome parts of Acorus calamus L. The chemical structure was unambiguously elucidated by spectroscopic and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Neotatarine (1) exhibited significantly inhibitory activity against Aβ25-35 induced PC12 cell d...