Stiffening of Cancer Cell Membranes Is a Key Biophysical Mechanism of Primary and Tertiary Cancer Prevention with Green Tea Polyphenols

Alleviation effects of epigallocatechin-3-gallate against acute kidney injury following severe burns

BACKGROUND

Burn patients often face a high risk of acute kidney injury (AKI) after severe burn injuries, meanwhile epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) has been proven to be effective in alleviating organ injury.

METHODS

This study used the classical burn model in rats. Thirty model rats were randomly divided into a Burn group, a Burn + placebo group, a Burn + EGCG (50 mg/kg) group, and ten non-model rats as Sham group. The urinary excretion of the rats was subsequently monitored for a period of 48 h. After 48 h of different treatments, rat serum and kidneys were taken for the further verification. The efficacy of EGCG was assessed in pathological sections, biochemical indexes, and at the molecular level.

RESULTS

Pathological sections were compared between the Burn group and Burn + placebo group. The rats in the Burn + EGCG group had less kidney damage. Moreover, the EGCG group maintained significantly elevated urine volumes, biochemical indexes manifested that EGCG could reduce serum creatinine (Cr) and neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) level and inhibit the oxidation-related enzyme malondialdehyde (MDA) level, meanwhile the superoxide dismutase (SOD) level was increased. The molecular level showed that EGCG significantly reduced the mRNA expression levels of the inflammation-related molecules interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α).

CONCLUSION

The research indicated that EGCG had an alleviating effect on kidney injury in severely burned rats, and its alleviating effects were related to improving kidney functions, alleviating oxidative stress, and inhibiting the expression of inflammatory factors.

Rowanberry-A Source of Bioactive Compounds and Their Biopharmaceutical Properties

After a period of intense development in the synthesis pharmaceutical industry, plants are making a comeback in the public focus as remedies or therapeutic adjuvants and in disease prevention and ensuring the wellbeing and equilibrium of the human body. Plants are being recommended more and more in alimentation, in their natural form, or as extracts, supplements or functional aliments. People, in general, are in search of new sources of nutrients and phytochemicals. As a result, scientific research turns to lesser known and used plants, among them being rowanberries, a species of fruit very rich in nutrients and underused due to their bitter astringent taste and a lack of knowledge regarding the beneficial effects of these fruit. Rowan fruits (rowanberries) are a rich source of vitamins, polysaccharides, organic acids and minerals. They are also a source of natural polyphenols, which are often correlated with the prevention and treatment of modern world diseases. This article presents the existing data regarding the chemical composition, active principles and biopharmaceutical properties of rowan fruits and the different opportunities for their usage.

Determination of Phenolic Compounds in Beverages by Three-Flow Channel Isocratic HPLC with Electrochemical Detections Using a Column-Switching Technique

For the quantitative analysis of phenolic compounds in beverage samples, a three-flow channel isocratic HPLC with electrochemical detection (3LC-ECD) system was devised using a column-switching technique. Phenolic compounds with significantly different hydrophobicity (the range of calculated log P: -0.77 to 3.02) were simultaneously measured to draw three chromatograms by the 3LC-ECD; the peaks of gallic acid (GA), protocatechuic acid (PCA), and gallocatechin (GC) were observed at electrochemical detector 1 (D1) within 42 min, the peaks of procyanidin B3 (B3), epigallocatechin (EGC), catechin (C), epicatechin (EC), procyanidin B2 (B2), ethyl gallate (Eg), and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCg) were observed at D2 within 50 min, and the peaks of epicatechin gallate (ECg), gallocatechin gallate (GCg), catechin gallate (Cg), propyl gallate (Pg), and resveratrol (RVT) were observed at D3 within 70 min. The relationships between the phenolic compound concentrations and their chromatographic peak heights gave good linearity with correlation coefficients of more than 0.998. The detection limits of the phenolic compounds by the 3LC-ECD ranged from 0.6 to 3.0 µg/L. Further, the phenolic compound concentrations of commercially available teas and wines were determined with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of less than 4.9% (n = 6), and their recoveries ranged from 91 to 109%. These results indicate that the 3LC-ECD system provided an accurate, precise, and specific determination of the phenolic compounds in beverages without affecting the matrices derived from these samples.