Gigantol inhibits proliferation and enhances DDP-induced apoptosis in breast-cancer cells by downregulating the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway

Canniprene B, a new prenylated dihydrostilbene with cytotoxic activities from the leaves of Cannabis sativa

A new, canniprene B (4), along with five known (1-3 and 5-6) dihydrostilbenes were isolated from the leaves of Cannabis sativa collected at CSIR - IIIM, Jammu, India. Structures of all isolated compounds were elucidated by spectroscopic data analysis, including 1D and 2D NMR, and HR-ESI-MS. Canniprene B is a new prenylated dihydrostilbenes, a positional isomer of the known compound canniprene (5). The cytotoxic activities of these compounds (1-6) were evaluated using the SRB assay against a panel of five human cancer cell lines. Notably, canniprene B (4) exhibited varying levels of cytotoxicity with IC50 values ranging from 2.5 to 33.52 μM, demonstrating the most potent activity against pancreatic cancer cells.

Chemical Constituents, Bioactivities, and Pharmacological Mechanisms of Dendrobium officinale: A Review of the Past Decade

Dendrobium officinale, a plant in the Orchidaceae family, has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years. Sweet and slightly cold in nature, it can invigorate the stomach, promote fluid production, nourish Yin, and dissipate heat. Over the past decade, more than 60 compounds have been derived from D. officinale, including flavonoids, bibenzyl, and phenanthrene. Various studies have explored the underlying pharmacological mechanisms of these compounds, which have shown antitumor, hypoglycemic, hypertensive, gastrointestinal-regulatory, visceral organ protection, antiaging, and neurorestorative effects. This paper presents a systematic review of the structural classification, biological activity, and pharmacological mechanisms of different chemical components obtained from D. officinale over the past decade. This review aims to provide a reference for future study and establish a foundation for clinical applications. Furthermore, this review identifies potential shortcomings in current research as well as potential directions and methodologies in future plant research.

Molecular mechanisms underlying the anticancer property of Dendrobium in various systems of the human body: A review

Dendrobium, which belongs to the family of Orchidaceae, is a highly valuable traditional Chinese medicine commonly used in China. It exerts pharmacological activities such as antitumor and hypoglycemia effects, and its main components are alkaloids, polysaccharides, and terpenoids, among others. In recent years, research on the clinical application of Dendrobium in antitumor therapy has gained increasing attention. Accumulating evidence suggests that the active components of Dendrobium possess significant inhibitory effects on the viability of cancer cells as evident from in vivo and in vitro experiments, which indicates that Dendrobium exerts significant anticancer effect in treating and preventing cancer development, inhibiting the underlying potential molecular mechanisms, including suppression of cancer cell growth and proliferation, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), apoptosis induction, tumor angiogenesis, and reinforcement of cisplatin (DDP) -induced apoptosis. We herein present a review that summarizes the research progress of the application of Dendrobium in cancer therapy and its molecular mechanisms. This review describes the positive aspects of the active ingredients of Dendrobium in the treatment of cancers in various systems of the human body, their inhibitory effects on tumor survival and tumor microenvironment, and their potential mechanisms. Additionally, this review proposes future application prospects of Dendrobium in cancer therapy to promote further research and future extensive clinical applications of Dendrobium in cancer therapy.

Pilot clinical trial and phenotypic analysis in chemotherapy-pretreated, metastatic triple-negative breast cancer patients treated with oral TAK-228 and TAK-117 (PIKTOR) to increase DNA damage repair deficiency followed by cisplatin and nab paclitaxel

BACKGROUND

A subset of triple-negative breast cancers (TNBCs) have homologous recombination deficiency with upregulation of compensatory DNA repair pathways. PIKTOR, a combination of TAK-228 (TORC1/2 inhibitor) and TAK-117 (PI3Kα inhibitor), is hypothesized to increase genomic instability and increase DNA damage repair (DDR) deficiency, leading to increased sensitivity to DNA-damaging chemotherapy and to immune checkpoint blockade inhibitors.

METHODS

10 metastatic TNBC patients received 4 mg TAK-228 and 200 mg TAK-117 (PIKTOR) orally each day for 3 days followed by 4 days off, weekly, until disease progression (PD), followed by intravenous cisplatin 75 mg/m2 plus nab paclitaxel 220 mg/m2 every 3 weeks for up to 6 cycles. Patients received subsequent treatment with pembrolizumab and/or chemotherapy. Primary endpoints were objective response rate with cisplatin/nab paclitaxel and safety. Biopsies of a metastatic lesion were collected prior to and at PD on PIKTOR. Whole exome and RNA-sequencing and reverse phase protein arrays (RPPA) were used to phenotype tumors pre- and post-PIKTOR for alterations in DDR, proliferation, and immune response.

RESULTS

With cisplatin/nab paclitaxel (cis/nab pac) therapy post PIKTOR, 3 patients had clinical benefit (1 partial response (PR) and 2 stable disease (SD) ≥ 6 months) and continued to have durable benefit in progression-free survival with pembrolizumab post-cis/nab pac for 1.2, 2, and 3.6 years. Their post-PIKTOR metastatic tissue displayed decreased mismatch repair (MMR), increased tumor mutation burden, and significantly lower levels of 53BP1, DAG Lipase β, GCN2, AKT Ser473, and PKCzeta Thr410/403 compared to pre-PIKTOR tumor tissue.

CONCLUSIONS

Priming patients' chemotherapy-pretreated metastatic TNBC with PIKTOR led to very prolonged response/disease control with subsequent cis/nab pac, followed by pembrolizumab, in 3 of 10 treated patients. Our multi-omics approach revealed a higher number of genomic alterations, reductions in MMR, and alterations in immune and stress response pathways post-PIKTOR in patients who had durable responses.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

This clinical trial was registered on June 21, 2017, at ClinicalTrials.gov using identifier NCT03193853.

Therapeutic Potential and Predictive Pharmaceutical Modeling of Stilbenes in Cannabis sativa

Cannabis sativa is a plant used for recreational and therapeutic purposes; however, many of the secondary metabolites in the plant have not been thoroughly investigated. Stilbenes are a class of compounds with demonstrated anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties and are present in cannabis. Many stilbenes present in cannabis have been investigated for their therapeutic effects. Fourteen stilbenes have been identified to be present in cannabis, all of which are structurally dihydrostilbenoids, with half possessing a prenylated moiety. The stilbenes summarized in this analysis show varying degrees of therapeutic benefits ranging from anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and anti-cancer to antioxidant effects. Many of the identified stilbenes have been researched to a limited extent for potential health benefits. In addition, predictive in silico modeling was performed on the fourteen identified cannabis-derived stilbenes. This modeling provides prospective activity, pharmacokinetic, metabolism, and permeability data, setting the groundwork for further investigation into these poorly characterized compounds.

Secondary Metabolites from Dendrobium nobile and Their Activities Induce Metabolites Apoptosis in OSC-19 Cells

To identify potential drug candidates, secondary metabolites of Dendrobium nobile were performed. As a result, two previously undescribed phenanthrene derivatives with a spirolactone ring (1 and 2), along with four known compounds, N-trans-cinnamoyltyramine (3), N-trans-p-coumaroyltyramine (4), N-trans-feruloyltyramine (5), and moscatilin (6), were isolated from Dendrobium nobile. The structures of the undescribed compounds were elucidated using NMR spectroscopy, electronic circular dichroism (ECD) calculations, and extensive spectroscopic data analysis. The cytotoxic effects of compounds on human tongue squamous cells OSC-19 were determined using MTT at concentrations of 2.5 μM, 5 μM, 10 μM, and 20 μM. Compound 6 exhibited potent inhibitory activity against OSC-19 cells with an IC₅₀ of 1.32 μM. Migration assays and western blot assays demonstrated that compound 6 effectively inhibited migration by down-regulating MMP2 and MMP9 at concentrations of 0.5 μM and 1 μM. To investigate its effect on apoptosis, we performed AO/PI staining, flow cytometry, and WB experiments. The results showed that increasing concentrations led to increased red fluorescence, decreased green fluorescence, increased apoptosis rate, decreased expression of bcl-2, caspase 3, caspase 9, and parp proteins, and increased bax expression. Furthermore, the phosphorylation of JNK and P38 was activated, suggesting that compound 6 may induce apoptosis via the MAPK pathway.

Identification of bibenzyls and evaluation of imitative wild planting techniques in Dendrobium officinale by HPLC-ESI-MSn

Dendrobium officinale is a traditional Chinese herb with beneficial properties. Modern pharmacological studies show that bibenzyl is one of the antitumor active ingredients, but there is no effective quality control method for identifying ingredients. In this study, the composition of bibenzyls in Dendrobium officinale was studied by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization multistage mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MSⁿ ). A total of nine isolated bibenzyls and their glycosides, 22 bis (bibenzyls), and two phenylpropanol bibenzyl derivatives were identified. The results of HPLC characteristic chromatogram analysis and statistical analysis showed that the relative content of bibenzyls in wild imitation cultivation of samples had been significantly higher than that in greenhouse cultivation. In addition, the relative content of bibenzyls increased with the growth of the original plant. This study provided a scientific reference for controlling the quality of bibenzyls in Dendrobium officinale, developing the cultivation technology and improving the quality of Dendrobium officinale. HIGHLIGHTS: HPLC-ESI-MS/MS method for the analysis of bibenzyls and bis (bibenzyls) in Dendrobium officinale. Easy-to-use method facilitating rapid measurement of large sample quantities. The method requires only small volumes of samples for the analysis. Applicable for the establishment of Chinese medicine studies and the quality control standard of Chinese herbs.

Plantaricin BM-1 decreases viability of SW480 human colorectal cancer cells by inducing caspase-dependent apoptosis

Plantaricin BM-1 is a class IIa bacteriocin produced by Lactobacillus plantarum BM-1 that has significant antimicrobial activity against food-borne bacteria. In this study, a cell proliferation assay and scanning electron microscopy were used to detect changes in the viability of SW480, Caco-2, and HCT-116 colorectal cancer cells treated with plantaricin BM-1. We found that plantaricin BM-1 significantly reduced the viability of all colorectal cancer cell lines tested, especially that of the SW480 cells. Scanning electron microscopy showed that plantaricin BM-1 treatment reduced the number of microvilli and slightly collapsed the morphology of SW480 cells. Fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry demonstrated that plantaricin BM-1 induced apoptosis of SW480 cells in a concentration-dependent manner. Western blotting further showed that plantaricin BM-1-induced apoptosis of SW480 cells was mediated by the caspase pathway. Finally, transcriptomic analysis showed that 69 genes were differentially expressed after plantaricin BM-1 treatment (p < 0.05), of which 65 were downregulated and four were upregulated. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analysis showed that expression levels of genes involved in the TNF, NF-κB, and MAPK signaling pathways, as well as functional categories such as microRNAs in cancer and transcriptional misregulation in cancer, were affected in SW480 cells following the treatment with plantaricin BM-1. In conclusion, plantaricin BM-1 induced death in SW480 cells via the caspase-dependent apoptosis pathway. Our study provides important information for further development of plantaricin BM-1 for potential applications in anti-colorectal cancer.

Targeted Pyroptosis Is a Potential Therapeutic Strategy for Cancer

As a type of regulated cell death (RCD) mode, pyroptosis plays an important role in several kinds of cancers. Pyroptosis is induced by different stimuli, whose pathways are divided into the canonical pathway and the noncanonical pathway depending on the formation of the inflammasomes. The canonical pathway is triggered by the assembly of inflammasomes, and the activation of caspase-1 and then the cleavage of effector protein gasdermin D (GSDMD) are promoted. While in the noncanonical pathway, the caspase-4/5/11 (caspase 4/5 in humans and caspase 11 in mice) directly cleave GSDMD without the assembly of inflammasomes. Pyroptosis is involved in various cancers, such as lung cancer, gastric cancer, hepatic carcinoma, breast cancer, and colorectal carcinoma. Pyroptosis in gastric cancer, hepatic carcinoma, breast cancer, and colorectal carcinoma is related to the canonical pathway, while both the canonical and noncanonical pathway participate in lung cancer. Moreover, simvastatin, metformin, and curcumin have effect on these cancers and simultaneously promote the pyroptosis of cancer cells. Accordingly, pyroptosis may be an important therapeutic target for cancer.

Rapid comparison of antitumor chemical constituents and mechanisms between Dendrobium nobile and Dendrobium officinale by UPLC-IT-TOF, network pharmacology and experimental verification

Dendrobium nobile and Dendrobium officinale as the main varieties of traditional Chinese medicine Dendrobium are widely used in clinic. The study aimed to systematically explore chemical constituents and their antitumor effect of D. nobile and D. officinale by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with ion trap time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-IT-TOF), network pharmacology and cancer cell experiments. D. nobile extract and D. officinale extract could significantly inhibit the proliferation of human lung cancer A549 cells, human liver cancer HepG2 cells and human breast cancer MCF-7 cells in the dose-dependent manner (P < 0.05), the antitumor effect of D. officinale extract was stronger than that of D. nobile extract at the same drug concentration. A total of 40 chemical constituents of D. nobile and D. officinale including phenanthrenes, bibenzyls and other types of compounds had been identified by UPLC-IT-TOF, LCMSsolution and MetID software according to retention times, accurate mass, MSn fragmentation, reference compounds and natural product databases. Phenanthrenes with good antitumor activity were mainly present in D. nobile, bibenzyls were the main compounds of D. officinale. Integrated networks of Herb-Compounds-Targets-Cancer revealed that gigantol, moscatilin, tristin, moscatin and densiflorol B were regarded as key antitumor compounds of D. nobile and D. officinale, D. nobile and D. officinale shared 7 targets accounting for 70% of the antitumor core targets, more than half of their antitumor KEGG pathways were similar. The results of molecular docking and western blotting experiments indicated that the antitumor mechanisms of D. nobile and D. officinale may be through inhibiting PI3K-Akt and HIF-1α signaling pathways.

Effects of Lactobacillus acidophilus KLDS1.0901 on Proliferation and Apoptosis of Colon Cancer Cells

Colon cancer is the most common type of malignant tumor. The cytotoxicity effect of lactic acid bacteria may be active by inhibiting cancer cell proliferation, producing anticancer compounds, and inducing apoptosis in cancer cells, but the mechanism is unclear. Our previous study revealed that Lactobacillus acidophilus KLDS1.0901 has good probiotic properties. In this study, We screened out the highest inhibition rate of L. acidophilus KLDS1.0901 and assessed the effects on the proliferation of HT-29, Caco-2, and IEC-6 cells. Then, the apoptosis mechanism of HT-29 cells was studied when treated with L. acidophilus KLDS1.0901. Results showed that L. acidophilus KLDS1.0901 inhibited the proliferation of HT-29 and Caco-2 cells in a dose-dependent manner and reached the maximum under the condition of multiplicity of infection (MOI) = 100 (rate of Lactobacillus to cells) at 48 h. With the increase in time and MOI, reactive oxygen species in HT-29 cells, the apoptosis rates of HT-29 cells were increased, and the amount of blue fluorescence of the cells was also increased after Hoechst 33258 staining. Furthermore, L. acidophilus KLDS1.0901 reduced the mitochondrial membrane potential of HT-29 cells. Notably, 1,133 differentially expressed genes were screened by transcriptomics research, including 531 up-regulated genes and 602 down-regulated genes. These genes were involved in the nuclear factor κB and PI3K-AKT signaling pathways related to the apoptosis of HT-29 cells. These findings suggested that L. acidophilus KLDS1.0901 has the potential to be used in the development of a new type of functional foods for adjuvant treatment of colon cancer.

Gigantol Improves Cholesterol Metabolism and Progesterone Biosynthesis in MA-10 Leydig Cells

In aging males, androgen production by testicular Leydig cells decreases at a rate of approximately 1% per year. Phenolic compounds may enhance testosterone biosynthesis and delay the onset of male hypogonadism. Gigantol is a bibenzyl compound isolated from several types of orchids of the genus Dendrobium. This compound has various biological activities, including antioxidant activity. However, its capacity to regulate gene expression and steroid production in testicular Leydig cells has never been evaluated. We investigated the effect of gigantol on MA-10 Leydig cells’ gene expression using an RNA-Seq approach. To further investigate the structure-function relationship of the hydroxy-methoxyphenyl moiety of gigantol, experiments were also performed with ferulic acid and isoferulic acid. According to transcriptomic analysis, all genes coding for cholesterol biosynthesis-related enzymes are increased in response to gigantol treatment, resulting in increased lipid droplets accumulation. Moreover, treatments with 10 μM gigantol increased StAR protein levels and progesterone production from MA-10 Leydig cells. However, neither ferulic acid nor isoferulic acid influenced StAR protein synthesis and progesterone production in MA-10 Leydig cells. Thus, our findings indicate that gigantol improves cholesterol and steroid biosynthesis within testicular Leydig cells.