trans-3-Methoxy-5-hydroxystilbene (MHS) from the rhizome of Alpinia nantonensis inhibits metastasis in human lung cancer cells

Multiplicative Effects of Essential Oils and Other Active Components on Skin Tissue and Skin Cancers

Naturally derived essential oils and their active components are known to possess various properties, ranging from anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-cancer activities. Numerous types of essential oils and active components have been discovered, and their permissive roles have been addressed in various fields. In this comprehensive review, we focused on the roles of essential oils and active components in skin diseases and cancers as discovered over the past three decades. In particular, we opted to highlight the effectiveness of essential oils and their active components in developing strategies against various skin diseases and skin cancers and to describe the effects of the identified essential-oil-derived major components from physiological and pathological perspectives. Overall, this review provides a basis for the development of novel therapies for skin diseases and cancers, especially melanoma.

High nuclear expression of APE1 correlates with unfavorable prognosis and promotes tumor growth in hepatocellular carcinoma

APE1 is a multifunctional protein that plays important roles in cancer development. However, the association between APE1 expression and the clinicopathological parameters of HCC patients has not been fully characterized. In this study, bioinformatics analysis of APE1 was performed in several databases, including the TCGA, GeneCard, Human Protein Atlas and Ualcan databases. The relationship between APE1 mRNA expression and several attributes of liver cancer patients in TCGA was investigated. Then, the protein expression of APE1 was detected by IHC analysis in 95 HCC samples and the association between APE1 expression and the clinicopathological parameters of HCC patients was explored. GSEA-KEGG analysis was performed to predict the potential signaling pathways that associated with APE1 expression. Then the siRNA-mediated knockdown model of APE1 was constructed in HCC cell line to further detect the detailed function of APE1 in HCC development in vitro and in vivo. The results of the bioinformatics analysis showed that APE1 expression was primarily located in the cell nucleus. APE1 mRNA expression was substantially correlated with pathological grade and T status in TCGA database. Elevated APE1 expression was observed in HCC samples and was associated with unfavorable survival time in liver cancer patients. IHC data demonstrated that the nuclear expression of APE1 in HCC tissues was significantly higher than that in noncancerous tissues. The expression level of the APE1 protein in HCC was strongly associated with tumor diameter and overall survival. Survival analysis indicated that APE1 nuclear expression is an independent prognostic marker for the overall survival of HCC patients. GSEA-KEGG results confirmed that APE1 associated with the base excision repair signaling pathway. The data of phenotypic experiments indicated that APE1 remarkably promoted tumor growth both in HCC cells and xenografts. The findings firstly imply that nuclear expression of APE1 is a valuable prognostic marker for HCC. APE1 significantly facilitate HCC development and targeting APE1 may be a promising strategy for HCC treatment.

Anticancer activities of TCM and their active components against tumor metastasis

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has the characteristics of multiple targets, slight side effects and good therapeutic effects. Good anti-tumor effects are shown by Traditional Chinese Medicine prescription, Chinese patent medicine, single Traditional Chinese Medicine and Traditional Chinese medicine monomer compound. Clinically, TCM prolonged the survival time of patients and improved the life quality of patients, due to less side effects. Cancer metastasis is a complex process involving numerous steps, multiple genes and their products. During the process of tumor metastasis, firstly, cancer cell increases its proliferative capacity by reducing autophagy and apoptosis, and then the cancer cell capacity is stimulated by increasing the ability of tumors to absorb nutrients from the outside through angiogenesis. Both of the two steps can increase tumor migration and invasion. Finally, the purpose of tumor metastasis is achieved. By inhibiting autophagy and apoptosis of tumor cells, angiogenesis and EMT outside the tumor can inhibit the invasion and migration of cancer, and consequently achieve the purpose of inhibiting tumor metastasis. This review explores the research achievements of Traditional Chinese Medicine on breast cancer, lung cancer, hepatic carcinoma, colorectal cancer, gastric cancer and other cancer metastasis in the past five years, summarizes the development direction of TCM on cancer metastasis research in the past five years and makes a prospect for the future.

Essential Oils of Alpinia nantoensis Retard Forskolin-Induced Melanogenesis via ERK1/2-Mediated Proteasomal Degradation of MITF

The anti-melanogenic activity of essential oils of Alpinia nantoensis and their bioactive ingredients were investigated in vitro. Treatment with leaf (LEO) and rhizome (REO) essential oils of A. nantoensis, significantly reduced forskolin-induced melanin production followed by down-regulation of tyrosinase (TYR) and tyrosinase related protein-1 (TRP-1) expression at both transcriptional and translational levels. Further studies revealed that down-regulation TYR and TRP-1 were caused by LEO/REO-mediated suppression of Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF), as evidenced by reduced nuclear translocation of MITF. Also, we found that LEO/REO induce the sustained activation of ERK1/2, which facilitate subsequent proteasomal degradation of MITF, as confirmed by that LEO/REO failed to inhibits MITF activity in ERK1/2 inhibitor treated cells. In addition, a significant increase of ubiquitinated MITF was observed after treatment with LEO and REO. Furthermore, the chemical composition of LEO and REO were characterized by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) resulted that camphor, camphene, α-pinene, β-pinene, isoborneol and _D-limonene were the major compounds in both LEO and REO. Further studies revealed that α-pinene and _D-limonene were the active components responsible for the anti-melanogenic properties of LEO and REO. Based on the results, this study provided a strong evidence that LEO and REO could be promising natural sources for the development of novel skin-whitening agents for the cosmetic purposes.

Ethanol Extracts of Dietary Herb, Alpinia nantoensis, Exhibit Anticancer Potential in Human Breast Cancer Cells

Recent advances in mammography screening, chemotherapy, and adjuvant treatment modalities have improved the survival rate of women with breast cancer. Nevertheless, the breast tumor with metastatic progression is still life-threatening. Indeed, combination therapy with Ras-ERK and PI3K inhibitors is clinically effective in malignant breast cancer treatment. Constituents from genus Alpinia plants have been implicated as potent anticancer agents in terms of their efficacy of inhibiting tumor cell metastasis. In this study, we tested the effects of ethanol extracts of Alpinia nantoensis (rhizome, stem, and leaf extracts) in cultured human breast cancer cells and particularly focused on the Ras-ERK and PI3K/AKT pathways. We found that the rhizome and leaf extracts from A nantoensis inhibited cell migration, invasion, and sphere formation in MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells. The potency was extended with the inhibition of serum-induced PI3K/AKT and Ras-ERK activation and epidermal growth factor (EGF)-mediated EGFR activation in MDA-MB-231 cells. These results indicate that extracts of A nantoensis could inhibit signal transduction at least involved in EGFR as well as the PI3K/AKT and Ras-ERK pathways, which are crucial players of tumor cell migration and invasion. Our study strongly supports that the extracts of A nantoensis could be a novel botanical drug lead for the development of an antimetastatic agent for the treatment of human malignant breast cancer.