Systematic Characterization of Active Antitumor Constituents from the Shaggy Bracket Medicinal Mushroom Inonotus hispidus (Agaricomycetes) by UPLC-Q-TOF/MS and Network Pharmacology.

Inonotus hispidus is a well-known medicinal fungus and has been used in the treatment of cancer in China, but the material basis and potential mechanisms are still limited. The present study aimed to use in vitro experiments, UPLC-Q-TOF/MS and network pharmacology to predict active compounds and possible mechanisms of cultivated and wild I. hispidus. The cytotoxicity results in vitro showed that the extracts of cultivated and wild fruit bodies exhibited the highest inhibitory effects against MDA-MB-231 cells, and the 50% inhibition concentration, (IC50) values were 59.82 and 92.09 µg/mL, respectively. Of the two extracts, a total of 30 possible chemical components, including 21 polyphenols and nine fatty acids, were identified. Network pharmacology showed that five active polyphenols (osmundacetone, isohispidin, inotilone, hispolon, and inonotusin A) and 11 potential targets (HSP90AA1, AKT1, STAT3, EGFR, ESR1, PIK3CA, HIF1A, ERBB2, TERT, EP300 and HSP90AB1) were found to be closely associated with antitumor activity. Furthermore, 18 antitumor-related pathways were identified using the compound-target-pathway network. The molecular docking revealed that the active polyphenols had a good binding ability to the core targets, and the results were consistent with those of network pharmacology. Based on these findings, we speculate that I. hispidus can exert its antitumor activity through multicomponent, multitarget, and multichannel mechanisms of action.

Cadmium stress interacts with nutrient availability and light condition to affect the growth of Hydrocotyle vulgaris.

Heavy metal pollution is becoming a serious problem in wetland and often co-occurs with nutrient availability and light conditions variation. We hypothesized that nutrient availability and light condition can affect the growth of wetland plants under heavy metal stress. To test this hypothesis, single ramets of a common, clonal wetland plant Hydrocotyle vulgaris were grown for four weeks at three levels of cadmium with three levels of nutrient availability under 30% or 100% light conditions. High level of nutrient availability and high light condition overall promoted growth of H. vulgaris under Cd stress. Under the two light conditions, responses of H. vulgaris to Cd treatments differed among three nutrient levels. Under 30% light condition, 2 mg L-1 Cd2+ treatment decreased total mass at the low nutrient level and decreased ramet number at the medium nutrient level; 0.5 and 2 mg L-1 Cd2+ treatments decreased leaf mass ratio at the low and the medium nutrient levels. Under 100% light condition, 2 mg L-1 Cd2+ treatments significantly decreased total mass at the high level of nutrients; 2 mg L-1 Cd2+ treatment decreased ramet number at the medium and the high nutrient levels and decreased leaf mass ratio at the medium nutrient levels. Our results suggested that Cd stress can interact with nutrient availability and light condition to affect the performance of wetland plants such as H. vulgaris.