Angiogenic effects of low molecular weight organic acids present in fulvic acids of different sources

Abstract

Fulvic acid (FA) is a natural mineral medicine with a long medical history in folk. However, the active chemicals of FA remain unknown due to its diversity of sources and the complexity of compositions, which have become a bottleneck in quality control and medicinal development. Based on the traditional effect on angiogenesis, FAs from eight different coal sources were prepared and their active fractions were investigated by the CAM model, resulting that most of acetonitrile dissolved parts of these FAs (DFAs) produced angiogenesis effects. Through chemical analysis on DFAs by GC-FID/MS, six shared organic acids with low molecular weights were identified and quantified, which showed the promoting effects on capillary areas, VEGF, b-FGF, and Ang-1 at different degrees. The PCA analysis showed that the five shared organic acids with high recognition are the active chemicals in different sources of FAs which may be responsible for the angiogenesis effects.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Fulvic acid
• organic acids
• GC/mass spectrometry
• angiogenic effect
• CAM model

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Additional information

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21400618).