Mechanism of Ferulic Acid in PI3K/AKT Pathway and Research in Glioblastoma.

Phenolic acids and their analogues in nature exist in many diseases of oxidative stress with beneficial effects on human health (such as cancer). Phenolic acids possess a variety of pharmacological activities, with anti-inflammatory, anticancer and cytotoxic, antioxidant, immunomodulatory, antimicrobial, insecticidal and other biological activities. Numerous in vitro and in vivo studies have shown that because phenolic acids have antioxidant capacity, they can reflect their strong anticancer potential by regulating cell growth and metastasis and promoting cancer cell death. Studies have shown that the consumption of natural polyphenols can significantly reduce the risk of cancer metastasis. A combination of phenolic acids with traditional chemoradiation or other polyphenols may be effective in reducing cancer spread.Ferulic acid is ubiquitous, and widely found in plants, such as angelica, chuanxiong, cohote, three, edge, reed root, tomato, sweet corn, and rice are produced by the metabolism of phenylalanine and tyrosine. It is the most abundant hydroxyl cassia bark-acid acid in the plant kingdom, with anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, anticancer and antioxidant activity, and polyphenols composed of hydroxyl cassia bark-acid derivatives, flavone-3-alcohol and flavonol retain non-cancer-cells-and-significantly-inhibit glioblastoma viability in a dose-dependent manner, which deserves further investigation as potential anticancer drugs. This paper summarizes the role of ferulic acid in the PI3K / AKT pathway and its mechanism in glioblastoma resistance.

Evolution and Biological Evaluation of Matrinic Derivatives with Amantadine Fragments As New Anti-Influenza Virus Agents.

A series of novel tricyclic matrinic derivatives with 11-adamantyl substitution were designed, synthesized, and evaluated for their activities against Influenza A H3N2 virus, based on the privileged structure strategy. Structure-activity relationship (SAR) analysis indicated that the introduction of an 11-adamantyl might be helpful for the potency. Among them, compounds 9f and 9j exhibited the promising anti-H3N2 activities with IC50 values of 7.2 µM and 10.2 µM, respectively, better than that of lead 1. Their activities were further confirmed at the protein level. Moreover, compound 9f displayed a high pharmacokinetic (PK) stability profile in whole blood and a safety profile in vivo. In primary mechanism, compound 9f could inhibit the virus replication cycle at early stage by targeting M2 protein, consistent with that of the parent amantadine. This study provided powerful information for further strategic optimization to develop these compounds into a new class of anti-influenza agents.