A facile synthesis of ursodeoxycholic acid and obeticholic acid from cholic acid.

A novel synthetic route of producing ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) and obeticholic acid (OCA) was developed through multiple reactions from cheap and readily-available cholic acid. The reaction conditions of the key elimination reaction of mesylate ester group were also investigated and optimized, including solvent, base and reaction temperature. In the straightforward synthetic route for preparation of UDCA and OCA, most of the reaction steps have high conversions with average yields of 94% and 92%, and overall yield up to 65% (7 steps) and 36% (11 steps) from cholic acid, respectively. This promising route offers economical and efficient strategies for potential large-scale production of UDCA and OCA.

Synthesis of Cyanoenone-Modified Diterpenoid Analogs as Novel Bmi-1-Mediated Antitumor Agents.

Bmi-1 is overexpressed in colorectal cancer (CRC) and served as a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of CRC. A series of novel cyanoenone-modified diterpenoid analogs was synthesized and investigated for their antiproliferative activity against CRC cells. The results showed that most of these compounds exhibited potent antiproliferative and Bmi-1 inhibitory activity. Among them, the most active compound 33 (SH498) showed more potent antiproliferative activity than the positive control compound PTC-209. These synthetic diterpenoid analogs were less toxic for normal human fibroblasts (HAF) than for CRC cells. Especially 33, its selectivity index (SI) between HAF and tumor cells was 7.3-13.1, which was much better than PTC-209. The polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1) complex, transwell migration, colony formation, cancer stem cell proliferation, and apoptosis assays of 33 were performed on CRC cell lines. The in vivo antitumor effect of 33 was also observed in HCT116 tumor-bearing mice.

The synthesis and antitumor activity of lithocholic acid and its derivatives.

In this paper, a new and concise synthetic route of lithocholic acid (LCA) using commercially available steroid source deoxycholic acid is reported. A series of amide derivatives of LCA were also synthesized and investigated for their activity against the growth of MCF-7 and MCF-7/ADR cells using the sulforhodamine B assay. For MCF-7, the most potent compound 20 showed a 20-fold higher antitumor activity than LCA. For MCF-7/ADR, the most potent compound 24 showed a 22-fold higher antitumor activity than LCA. The transwell migration assay of 20 was evaluated on MDA-MB-231 cells. The colony formation and apoptosis assays of 20 were performed on MCF-7 and MCF-7/ADR cell lines.

Value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in the differential diagnosis between benign and malignant renal neoplasms / 中华肿瘤杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the value of contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) imaging in the differential diagnosis between benign and malignant renal neoplasms.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Two hundred and forty-five cases of renal space-occupying lesions confirmed by biopsy or surgical pathology were included in this study. The CEUS features of the renal space-occupying lesions, i.e., the enhancement degree, homogeneity of enhancement, washing-in and washing-out time and enhancement pattern, were retrospectively analyzed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>There were 210 cases of malignant renal tumors and 35 cases of benign lesions. The CEUS modes of the malignant renal tumors included "quick in and quick out" 82 cases, "quick in and slow out" 64 cases, "slow in and quick out" 18 cases and "slow in and slow out" 46 cases; good enhancement 150 cases (71.4%) and inhomogeneous enhancement 180 cases (85.7%).Both the contrast agent filling defect area and solid component enhancement of solid-cystic tumors were important features of malignant renal tumors. In the 35 cases of benign lesions,the CEUS modes included "quick in and quick out" 4 cases, "quick in and slow out" 8 cases, "slow in and quick out" 10 cases and "slow in and slow out" 13 cases. Most of the benign tumors showed low enhancement 51.4% (18/35) and inhomogeneous enhancement 54.3% (19/35). There were significant differences between the malignant and benign renal neoplasms in CEUS mode, degree of enhancement and homogeneity of enhancement (P < 0.05), and in time of increasing, peak time, peak intensity and peak intensity ratio (P < 0.05). The accuracy rates of contrast-enhanced ultrasound for diagnosis of benign and malignant tumors were 77.1% and 83.8%, respectively, while the two-dimensional ultrasound diagnosis of benign and malignant tumors were 68.6% and 76.7%, respectively, with a significant difference (P < 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>CEUS may provide more information to improve the diagnostic accuracy for renal neoplasms, and may play important role in differential diagnosis between benign and malignant renal lesions.</p>