Protective effect of Shouwu Yizhi decoction against vascular dementia by promoting angiogenesis.

Shouwu is a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with neuroprotective effect. Shouwu Yizhi decoction (SYD) was designed based on TCM theory. However, little is known about the roles of SYD in Vascular dementia (VaD). The present study aimed to evaluate the potential effects of SYD on the vascular cognitive impairment and explore the underlying mechanism by establishing focal cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) rat model to induce VaD. SYD administration (54 mg·kg-1) for 40 days obviously improved the vascular cognitive impairment in the middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) rats as evidenced by the declined neurological deficit score and shortened escape latency via neurological deficit assessment and Morris water maze test. Moreover, SYD decreased neuron damage-induced cell death and ameliorated the ultrastructure of endothelial cells in the MCAO rats, thereby alleviating VaD. Mechanistically, SYD caused increases in the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), CD34 and CD31, compared with the MCAO rats in coronal hippocampus. Simultaneously, the expression level of miR-210 was elevated significantly after SYD administration, compared with the vehicle rats (P < 0.01). The expression of Notch 4 at both mRNA and protein levels was upregulated remarkably along with the notably downregulated DLL4 expression under SYD administration compared with the vehicle rats (P < 0.05). Overall, the above results indicated that SYD promoted angiogenesis by upregulating VEGF-induced miR210 expression to activate Notch pathway, and further alleviated neuron damage and ameliorated the ultrastructure of endothelial cells in the MCAO rats, ultimately enhancing the cognition and memory of MCAO rats. Therefore, our findings preliminarily identified the effect and the mechanism of action for SYD on VaD in rats. SYD could be a potential candidate in treatment of VaD.

Peri-operative use of sorafenib in liver transplantation: a time-to-event meta-analysis.

AIM: To evaluate whether the application of sorafenib during the peri-operative period of liver transplantation improves prognosis in liver cancer patients. METHODS: We searched PubMed, EMBASE and MEDLINE for eligible articles. A total of 4 studies were found that fulfilled the previously agreed-upon standards. We then performed a systematic review and meta-analysis on the enrolled trials that met the inclusion criteria. RESULTS: Out of the 104 studies identified in the database, 82 were not clinical experiments, and 18 did not fit the inclusion standards. Among the remaining 4 articles, only 1 was related to the preoperative use of sorafenib, whereas the other 3 were related to its postoperative use. As the heterogeneity among the 4 studies was high, with an I(2) of 86%, a randomized effect model was applied to pool the data. The application of sorafenib before liver transplantation had a hazard ratio (HR) of 3.29 with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of 0.33-32.56. The use of sorafenib after liver transplantation had an HR of 1.44 (95%CI: 0.27-7.71). The overall pooled HR was 1.68 (95%CI: 0.41-6.91). CONCLUSION: The results showed that the use of sorafenib during the peri-operative period of liver transplantation did not improve patient survival significantly. In fact, sorafenib could even lead to a worse prognosis, as its use may increase the hazard of poor survival.

Two new rhamnopyranosides of neolignans from Sanguisorba officinalis.

Two new rhamnopyranosides of neolignans, (7S,8R)-4,9,5',9'-tetrahydroxy-3,3'-dimethoxy-8-O-4'-neolignan-7-O-α-l-rhamnopyranoside (1) and (7S,8R)-4,9,9'-trihydroxy-3,3',5'-trimethoxy-8-O-4'-neolignan-7-O-α-l-rhamnopyranoside (2), together with a known compound (7S,8R)-4,7,9,9'-tetrahydroxy-3,3'-dimethoxy-8-O-4'-neolignan (3), were isolated from the 80% EtOH extract of the roots of Sanguisorba officinalis. Their structures were characterized by spectroscopic analysis including 1D NMR, 2D NMR, and HR-ESI-MS, and chemical method.

Experimental study on the effect of Kang-Lai-Te induced apoptosis of human hepatoma carcinoma cell HepG2.

BACKGROUND: Kang-Lai-Te (KLT) is extracted from the traditional Chinese herbal medicine Semen Coicis, which has been used in China as an effective clinical drug for over a thousand years. It contains numerous ingredients with anti-tumor effects. In our previous studies on transplanted hepatomas in rats, KLT could stop the cells in the G2+M stage of cell cycle and then reduce the number of cells entering the stage G0 and G1, but the mechanism of the anti-proliferative effect was unknown. In this experiment, we examined whether KLT inhibits HepG2 cell growth, if so, tried to explore its mechanism. METHODS: KLT at different concentrations was used for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma cells in vitro, respectively. The proliferation inhibitory rate was evaluated by MTT assay, induction of cell apoptosis rate and the protein levels of Fas and Fas ligand (FasL) were determined by flow cytometry (FCM), and the expression of Fas and FasL mRNA was detected by real-time fluorescent quantitative RT-PCR. RESULTS: KLT produced an obvious time and dose-dependent inhibitory effect on HepG2 cells, and marked apoptosis was detected by FCM. The protein of Fas increased by 11.01%, 18.71%, 28.71% and 37.15%; the protein of FasL increased by 1.49%, 1.91%, 3.27% and 3.38% in comparison with the control (P<0.05). Real-time fluorescent quantitative RT-PCR showed that treating HepG2 cells with KLT caused the upregulation of Fas and FasL mRNA. CONCLUSION: KLT inhibits HepG2 growth by inducing apoptosis, which may be mediated through activation of the Fas/FasL pathway.

Chinese herb related molecules of cancer-cell-apoptosis: a minireview of progress between Kanglaite injection and related genes.

Many kinds of Chinese herb had been confirmed to have the character of anti-tumor, clinical reports about anti-tumor effects of Chinese herb had also been found in recent years, but most of the reports were focused on the clinical treatment of effectiveness for Chinese herb, on the other hand, review about Chinese herbal related with molecules on cancer-cell-apoptosis was seldom, many scientists could not believe such kinds of clinical describes about anti-tumor effects for Chinese herb, because these describes were lack of molecular biology evidence. Kanglaite(KLT) injection is an anti-tumor new drug which extracts from Chinese medicine-coix seed with modern advanced pharmaceutical technology, it is also a new biphase extended-spectrum anticancer medicine, the food and drug administration(FDA) of United States also approved a phase II trial of KLT to test its efficacy in treating non-small-cell lung cancer. Some studies show it could inhibit some anti-apoptotic gene and activate some pro-apoptotic gene, its injection solution is one of the new anticancer medicine that can significantly inhibit a various kinds of tumor cells, so it has become the core of research that how to further explore KLT injection to promote tumor cell apoptosis by impacting on related genes. In this review, the relationship between KLT and some tumor cell apoptosis molecules had been discussed and reviewed generally.