Umbelliferone and eriodictyol suppress the cellular entry of SARS-CoV-2.

BACKGROUND: Artemisia argyi (A. argyi), also called Chinese mugwort, has been widely used to control pandemic diseases for thousands of years since ancient China due to its anti-microbial infection, anti-allergy, and anti-inflammation activities. Therefore, the potential of A. argyi and its constituents in reducing the infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was investigated in this study. RESULTS: Among the phytochemicals in A. argyi, eriodictyol and umbelliferone were identified to target transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) and angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) proteins, the essential factors for the cellular entry of SARS-CoV-2, in both FRET-based enzymatic assays and molecular docking analyses. These two ingredients of A. argyi suppressed the infection of ACE2-expressed HEK-293 T cells with lentiviral-based pseudo-particles (Vpp) expressing wild-type and variants of SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein (SARS-CoV-2 S-Vpp) via interrupting the interaction between S protein and cellular receptor ACE2 and reducing the expressions of ACE2 and TMPRSS2. Oral administration with umbelliferone efficiently prevented the SARS-CoV-2 S-Vpp-induced inflammation in the lung tissues of BALB/c mice. CONCLUSIONS: Eriodictyol and umbelliferone, the phytochemicals of Artemisia argyi, potentially suppress the cellular entry of SARS-CoV-2 by preventing the protein binding activity of the S protein to ACE2.

Melatonin Inhibits VEGF-Induced Endothelial Progenitor Cell Angiogenesis in Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration.

Neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is described as abnormal angiogenesis in the retina and the leaking of fluid and blood that generates a huge, dark, blind spot in the center of the visual field, causing severe vision loss in over 90% of patients. Bone marrow-derived endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) contribute to pathologic angiogenesis. Gene expression profiles downloaded from the eyeIntegration v1.0 database for healthy retinas and retinas from patients with neovascular AMD identified significantly higher levels of EPC-specific markers (CD34, CD133) and blood vessel markers (CD31, VEGF) in the neovascular AMD retinas compared with healthy retinas. Melatonin is a hormone that is mainly secreted by the pineal gland, and is also produced in the retina. Whether melatonin affects vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-induced EPC angiogenesis in neovascular AMD is unknown. Our study revealed that melatonin inhibits VEGF-induced stimulation of EPC migration and tube formation. By directly binding with the VEGFR2 extracellular domain, melatonin significantly and dose-dependently inhibited VEGF-induced PDGF-BB expression and angiogenesis in EPCs via c-Src and FAK, NF-κB and AP-1 signaling. The corneal alkali burn model demonstrated that melatonin markedly inhibited EPC angiogenesis and neovascular AMD. Melatonin appears promising for reducing EPC angiogenesis in neovascular AMD.

ERα determines the chemo-resistant function of mutant p53 involving the switch between lincRNA-p21 and DDB2 expressions.

Mutant p53 (mutp53) commonly loses its DNA binding affinity to p53 response elements (p53REs) and fails to induce apoptosis fully. However, the p53 mutation does not predict chemoresistance in all subtypes of breast cancers, and the critical determinants remain to be identified. In this study, mutp53 was found to mediate chemotherapy-induced long intergenic noncoding RNA-p21 (lincRNA-p21) expression by targeting the G-quadruplex structure rather than the p53RE on its promoter to promote chemosensitivity. However, estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) suppressed mutp53-mediated lincRNA-p21 expression by hijacking mutp53 to upregulate damaged DNA binding protein 2 (DDB2) transcription for subsequent DNA repair and chemoresistance. Levels of lincRNA-p21 positively correlated with the clinical responses of breast cancer patients to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and had an inverse correlation with the ER status and DDB2 level. In contrast, the carboplatin-induced DDB2 expression was higher in ER-positive breast tumor tissues. These results demonstrated that ER status determines the oncogenic function of mutp53 in chemoresistance by switching its target gene preference from lincRNA-p21 to DDB2 and suggest that induction of lincRNA-p21 and targeting DDB2 would be effective strategies to increase the chemosensitivity of mutp53 breast cancer patients.

Hesperidin Is a Potential Inhibitor against SARS-CoV-2 Infection.

Hesperidin (HD) is a common flavanone glycoside isolated from citrus fruits and possesses great potential for cardiovascular protection. Hesperetin (HT) is an aglycone metabolite of HD with high bioavailability. Through the docking simulation, HD and HT have shown their potential to bind to two cellular proteins: transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) and angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which are required for the cellular entry of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Our results further found that HT and HD suppressed the infection of VeroE6 cells using lentiviral-based pseudo-particles with wild types and variants of SARS-CoV-2 with spike (S) proteins, by blocking the interaction between the S protein and cellular receptor ACE2 and reducing ACE2 and TMPRSS2 expression. In summary, hesperidin is a potential TMPRSS2 inhibitor for the reduction of the SARS-CoV-2 infection.

miR-221 confers lapatinib resistance by negatively regulating p27kip1 in HER2-positive breast cancer.

Development of acquired resistance to lapatinib, a dual epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) tyrosine kinase inhibitor, severely limits the duration of clinical response in advanced HER2-driven breast cancer patients. Although the compensatory activation of the PI3K/Akt survival signal has been proposed to cause acquired lapatinib resistance, comprehensive molecular mechanisms remain required to develop more efficient strategies to circumvent this therapeutic difficulty. In this study, we found that suppression of HER2 by lapatinib still led to Akt inactivation and elevation of FOX3a protein levels, but failed to induce the expression of their downstream pro-apoptotic effector p27kip1 , a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor. Elevation of miR-221 was found to contribute to the development of acquired lapatinib resistance by targeting p27kip1 expression. Furthermore, upregulation of miR-221 was mediated by the lapatinib-induced Src family tyrosine kinase and subsequent NF-κB activation. The reversal of miR-221 upregulation and p27kip1 downregulation by a Src inhibitor, dasatinib, can overcome lapatinib resistance. Our study not only identified miRNA-221 as a pivotal factor conferring the acquired resistance of HER2-positive breast cancer cells to lapatinib through negatively regulating p27kip1 expression, but also suggested Src inhibition as a potential strategy to overcome lapatinib resistance.

Screening strategy of TMPRSS2 inhibitors by FRET-based enzymatic activity for TMPRSS2-based cancer and COVID-19 treatment.

Transmembrane serine protease (TMPRSS2) plays an oncogenic role in prostate cancer as the fusion gene with ERG, and has also been demonstrated to be essential for the cellular entry of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronaviruses (SARS-CoV). Thus, targeting TMPRSS2 is a promising strategy for therapies against both prostate cancer and coronavirus infection. Although Nafamostat and Camostat have been identified as TMPRSS2 inhibitors, severe side effects such as cerebral hemorrhage, anaphylactoid reaction, and cardiac arrest shock greatly hamper their clinical use. Therefore, more potent and safer drugs against this serine protease should be further developed. In this study, we developed a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based platform for effectively screening of inhibitors against TMPRSS2 protease activity. The disruption of FRET between green and red fluorescent proteins conjugated with the substrate peptide, which corresponds to the cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein, was measured to determine the enzymatic activity of TMPRSS2. Through an initiate pilot screening with around 100 compounds, Flupirtine, a selective neuronal potassium channel opener, was identified as a potential TMPRSS2 inhibitor from an FDA-approved drug library by using this screening platform, and showed inhibitory effect on the TMPRSS-dependent infection of SARS-CoV-2 Spike-pseudotyped lentiviral particles. This study describes a platform proven effective for rapidly screening of TMPRSS2 inhibitors, and suggests that Flupirtine may be worthy of further consideration of repurposing to treat COVID-19 patients.

Proteasome Inhibitors Suppress ErbB Family Expression through HSP90-Mediated Lysosomal Degradation.

Although dual EGFR/HER2 tyrosine kinase inhibitor lapatinib has provided effective clinical benefits for HER2-positive breast cancer patients, acquired resistance to this drug remains a major concern. Thus, the development of alternative therapeutic strategies is urgently needed for patients who failed lapatinib treatment. Proteasome inhibitors have been reported to possess high anti-tumor activity to breast cancer cells. Therefore, this study aims to examine whether and how proteasome inhibitor bortezomib can overcome lapatinib resistance. Treatments with several proteasome inhibitors, including Bortezomib, MG132, and proteasome inhibitor I (PSI), as well as the viabilities of both HER2-positive breast cancer cell lines and their lapatinib-resistant clones, were inhibited. Importantly, the expressions of ErbB family were downregulated at both transcriptional and translational levels. Also, our results further indicated that proteasome inhibitors decreased ErbB family expression through lysosomal degradation pathway in a heat shock protein 90 (HSP90)-dependent manner. In this study, our data supported a potential approach to overcome the acquired resistance of HER2-overexpressing breast cancer patients to lapatinib using proteasome inhibitors.

Development of inducer-free expression plasmids based on IPTG-inducible promoters for Bacillus subtilis.

BACKGROUND: Besides Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis is an important bacterial species for the production of recombinant proteins. Recombinant genes are inserted into shuttle expression vectors which replicate in both E. coli and in B. subtilis. The ligation products are first transformed into E. coli cells, analyzed for correct insertions, and the correct recombinant plasmids are then transformed into B. subtilis. A major problem using E. coli cells can be the strong basal level of expression of the recombinant protein which may interfere with the stability of the cells. To minimize this problem, we developed strong expression vectors being repressed in E. coli and inducer-free in B. subtilis. RESULTS: In general, induction of IPTG-inducible expression vectors is determined by the regulatory lacI gene encoding the LacI repressor in combination with the lacO operator on the promoter. To investigate the inducer-free properties of the vectors, we constructed inducer-free expression plasmids by removing the lacI gene and characterized their properties. First, we examined the ability to repress a reporter gene in E. coli, which is a prominent property facilitating the construction of the expression vectors carrying a target gene. The ß-galactosidase (bgaB gene) basal levels expressed from Pgrac01-bgaB could be repressed at least twice in the E. coli cloning strain. Second, the inducer-free production of BgaB from four different plasmids with the Pgrac01 promoter in B. subtilis was investigated. As expected, BgaB expression levels of inducer-free constructs are at least 37 times higher than that of the inducible constructs in the absence of IPTG, and comparable to those in the presence of the inducer. Third, using efficient IPTG-inducible expression vectors containing the strong promoter Pgrac100, we could convert them into inducer-free expression plasmids. The BgaB production levels from the inducer-free plasmid in the absence of the inducer were at least 4.5 times higher than that of the inducible vector using the same promoter. Finally, we used gfp as a reporter gene in combination with the two promoters Pgrac01 and Pgrac100 to test the new vector types. The GFP expression levels could be repressed at least 1.5 times for the Pgrac01-gfp+ inducer-free construct in E. coli. The inducer-free constructs Pgrac01-gfp+ and Pgrac100-gfp+ allowed GFP expression at high levels from 23 × 104 to 32 × 104 RFU units and 9-13% of total intracellular proteins. We could reconfirm the two major advantages of the new inducer-free expression plasmids: (1) Strong repression of the target gene expression in the E. coli cloning strain, and (2) production of the target protein at high levels in B. subtilis in the absence of the inducer. CONCLUSIONS: We propose a general strategy to generate inducer-free expression vector by using IPTG-inducible vectors, and more specifically we developed inducer-free expression plasmids using IPTG-inducible promoters in the absence of the LacI repressor. These plasmids could be an excellent choice for high-level production of recombinant proteins in B. subtilis without the addition of inducer and at the same time maintaining a low basal level of the recombinant proteins in E. coli. The repression of the recombinant gene expression would facilitate cloning of genes that potentially inhibit the growth of E. coli cloning strains. The inducer-free expression plasmids will be extended versions of the current available IPTG-inducible expression vectors for B. subtilis, in which all these vectors use the same cognate promoters. These inducer-free and previously developed IPTG-inducible expression plasmids will be a useful cassette to study gene expression at a small scale up to a larger scale up for the production of recombinant proteins.