CONCLUSION: Overall, this review discusses some of the previously studied and reported natural products and their mechanisms of action which may potentially be redirected into ADPKD.
OBJECTIVES: To investigate the anti-atherosclerotic activity of a C. nutans leaf methanol extract (CNME) in a type 2 diabetic (T2D) rat model induced by a high-fat diet (HFD) and low-dose streptozotocin.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sixty male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into five groups: non-diabetic fed a standard diet (C), C + CNME (500 mg/kg, orally), diabetic fed an HFD (DM), DM + CNME (500 mg/kg), and DM + Metformin (DM + Met; 300 mg/kg). Treatment with oral CNME and metformin was administered for 4 weeks. Fasting blood glucose (FBG), serum lipid profile, atherogenic index (AI), aortic tissue superoxide dismutase levels (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) were measured. The rats' aortas were stained for histological analysis and intima-media thickness (IMT), a marker of subclinical atherosclerosis.
RESULTS: The CNME-treated diabetic rats had reduced serum total cholesterol (43.74%; p = 0.0031), triglycerides (80.91%; p = 0.0003), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (56.64%; p = 0.0008), AI (51.32%; p
AIM OF THE STUDY: This study aimed to use a computational target fishing approach to predict the possible therapeutic effect of Marantodes pumilum and evaluated their effectivity.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study involves a computational approach to identify the potential targets by using target fishing. Several databases were used: PubChem database to obtain the chemical structure of interested compounds; Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP) server and the SWISSADME web tool to identify and select the compounds having drug-likeness properties; PharmMapper was used to identify top ten target protein of the selected compounds and Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) was used to predict human genetic problems; the gene id of top-10 proteins was obtained from UniProtKB to be analyzed by using GeneMANIA server to check the genes' function and their co-expression; Gene Pathway established by Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Ontology (GO) of the selected targets were analyzed by using EnrichR server and confirmed by using DAVID (The Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery) version 6.8 and STRING database. All the interaction data was analyzed by Cytoscape version 3.7.2 software. The protein structure of most putative proteins was obtained from the RCSB protein data bank. Thedocking analysis was conducted using PyRx biological software v0.8 and illustrated by BIOVIA Discovery Studio Visualizer version 20.1.0. As a preliminary evaluation, a cell viability assay using Sulforhodamine B was conducted to evaluate the potential of the predicted therapeutic effect.
RESULTS: It was found that four studied compounds are highly correlated with three proteins: EFGR, CDK2, and ESR1. These proteins are highly associated with cancer pathways, especially breast cancer and prostate cancer. Qualitatively, cell proliferation assay conducted shown that the extract has IC50 of 88.69 μg/ml against MCF-7 and 66.51 μg/ml against MDA-MB-231.
CONCLUSIONS: Natural herbs are one of the most common forms of complementary and alternative medicine, and they play an important role in disease treatment. The results of this study show that in addition to being used traditionally to maintain women's health, the use of Marantodes pumilum indirectly has the potential to protect against the development of cancer cells, especially breast cancer. Therefore, further research is necessary to confirm the potential of this plant to be used in the development of anti-cancer drugs, especially for breast cancer.
AIM OF THE STUDY: To evaluate the immune stimulatory effects of F3 from S. crispus in NMU-induced rat mammary tumor model.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Immunohistochemistry analysis of cellular immune parameters (CD4+ or CD8+ T cells, CIITA, MHC-II and CD68) was performed on NMU-induced rat mammary tumor nodules, followed by evaluation of the serum level of 34 cytokines using the cytokine antibody array.
RESULTS: Significant increase in MHC-II, CD4+ and CD8+ T cell and CIITA expression by tumor cells was observed in F3-treated rats compared to the tumor control group. F3-treated rats also displayed a significant decrease in the serum level of CCL2 and CD68+ infiltrating macrophages. Serum IFN-γ level in this group was increased by 1.7-fold suggesting enhanced infiltration of T cells, and upregulation of CIITA and MHC-II expression in the tumor cells might be triggered by F3-induced production of IFN-γ.
CONCLUSION: Our findings demonstrated for the first time that a subfraction from S. crispus, F3, is capable of activating the immune system in rats-bearing NMU-induced mammary tumor, which may contribute to the anticancer effects of F3, and additionally support the traditional use of S. crispus leaves to boost the immune system.
METHODS AND RESULTS: The leaves of D. linearis were subjected to sonication-assisted extraction using hexane (HEX), dichloromethane, ethyl acetate and methanol (MeOH). It was found that only the MeOH fraction exhibited antimicrobial activity using broth microdilution assay; while all four fractions do not exhibit biofilm inhibition activity against S. aureusATCC 6538P, S. aureusATCC 43300, S. aureusATCC 33591 and S. aureusATCC 29213 using crystal violet assay. Among the four fractions tested, only the HEX fraction showed biofilm disrupting ability, with 60-90% disruption activity at 5 mg ml-1against all four S. aureus strains tested. Bioassay-guided purification of the active fraction has led to the isolation of α-tocopherol. α-Tocopherol does not affect the cells within the biofilms but instead affects the biofilm matrix in order to disrupt S. aureus biofilms.
CONCLUSIONS: α-Tocopherol was identified to be the bioactive component of D. linearis with disruption activity against S. aureus biofilm matrix.
SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: The use of α-tocopherol as a biofilm disruptive agent might potentially be useful to treat biofilm-associated infections in the future.
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to study the chemoprevention effects of MEMCL against azoxymethane (AOM)-induced colon cancer and to examine the involvement of endogenous antioxidants Materials and methods: Male Sprague-Dawley rats, divided into five groups (n = 7), were injected intraperitoneally once weekly for 2 weeks with 15 mg/kg AOM, except for the normal group (received saline). The animals were then administered orally for 8 weeks with 8% Tween-80 (vehicle; normal group), 8% Tween-80 (vehicle; cancer group) or, 50, 250 or 500 mg/kg MEMC. After treatments, colon samples were collected from each rat for the histopathological analysis, quantification of aberrant crypt foci formed and determination of colon antioxidant levels. MEMC was also subjected to HPLC analysis.
RESULTS: The extract exerted significant (p
PURPOSE: This study provides new insights on the changes of endogenous metabolites caused by I. aquatica ethanolic extract and improves the understanding on the therapeutic efficacy and mechanism of I. aquatica ethanolic extract.
METHODS: By using a combination of 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) with multivariate analysis (MVDA), the changes of metabolites due to I. aquatica ethanolic extract administration in obese diabetic-induced Sprague Dawley rats (OB+STZ+IA) were identified.
RESULTS: The results suggested 19 potential biomarkers with variable importance projections (VIP) above 0.5, which include creatine/creatinine, glucose, creatinine, citrate, carnitine, 2-oxoglutarate, succinate, hippurate, leucine, 1-methylnicotinamice (MNA), taurine, 3-hydroxybutyrate (3-HB), tryptophan, lysine, trigonelline, allantoin, formiate, acetoacetate (AcAc) and dimethylamine. From the changes in the metabolites, the affected pathways and aspects of metabolism were identified.
CONCLUSION: I. aquatica ethanolic extract increases metabolite levels such as creatinine/creatine, carnitine, MNA, trigonelline, leucine, lysine, 3-HB and decreases metabolite levels, including glucose and tricarboxylic acid (TCA) intermediates. This implies capabilities of I. aquatica ethanolic extract promoting glycolysis, gut microbiota and nicotinate/nicotinamide metabolism, improving the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and reducing the β-oxidation rate. However, the administration of I. aquatica ethanolic extract has several drawbacks, such as unimproved changes in amino acid metabolism, especially in reducing branched chain amino acid (BCAA) synthesis pathways and lipid metabolism.