Biological Activity of an Epilobium angustifolium L. (Fireweed) Infusion after In Vitro Digestion

The biological activity of an in vitro digested infusion of Epilobium angustifolium (fireweed) was examined in a model system of intestinal epithelial and colon cancer tissues. The content of selected phenolic compounds in the digested aqueous extract of fireweed was determined using HPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS. Biological activity was examined using the human colon adenocarcinoma cell lines HT-29 and CaCo-2 and the human colon epithelial cell line CCD 841 CoTr. Cytotoxicity was assessed by an MTT assay, a Neutral Red uptake assay, May-Grünwald-Giemsa staining, and a label-free Electric Cell-Substrate Impedance Sensing cytotoxicity assay. The effect of the infusion on the growth of selected intestinal bacteria was also examined. The extract inhibited the growth of intestinal cancer cells HT-29. This effect can be attributed to the activity of quercetin and kaempferol, which were the most abundant phenolic compounds found in the extract after in vitro digestion. The cytotoxicity of the fireweed infusion was dose-dependent. The highest decrease in proliferation (by almost 80%) compared to the control was observed in HT-29 line treated with the extract at a concentration of 250 μg/mL. The fireweed infusion did not affect the growth of beneficial intestinal bacteria, but it did significantly inhibit E. coli. The cytotoxic effect of the fireweed extract indicates that it does not lose its biological activity after in vitro digestion. It can be concluded that the fireweed infusion has the potential to be used as a supporting agent in colon cancer therapy.     

Smart Nanocarriers as an Emerging Platform for Cancer Therapy: A Review

Cancer is a group of disorders characterized by uncontrolled cell growth that affects around 11 million people each year globally. Nanocarrier-based systems are extensively used in cancer imaging, diagnostics as well as therapeutics; owing to their promising features and potential to augment therapeutic efficacy. The focal point of research remains to develop new-fangled smart nanocarriers that can selectively respond to cancer-specific conditions and deliver medications to target cells efficiently. Nanocarriers deliver loaded therapeutic cargos to the tumour site either in a passive or active mode, with the least drug elimination from the drug delivery systems. This review chiefly focuses on current advances allied to smart nanocarriers such as dendrimers, liposomes, mesoporous silica nanoparticles, quantum dots, micelles, superparamagnetic iron-oxide nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes, to list a few. Exhaustive discussion on crucial topics like drug targeting, surface decorated smart-nanocarriers and stimuli-responsive cancer nanotherapeutics responding to temperature, enzyme, pH and redox stimuli have been covered.     

A Study of the Application of Photoexcited TiO2 Particle to Cancer Treatment

The purpose of the present paper is to introduce such a new application of photoexcited TiO₂ to the area of biology that has been investigated in our laboratory. The behavior of cultured celles on the photoexcied TiO₂ electrode surface and the cell killing effect of photoexcited TiO₂ particles are described. And the possible application of this cell killing effect of photoexcited TiO₂ particles to cancer treatment is discussed.     

胃癌组织的拉曼光谱初探

本文用ＦＴ－Ｒａｍａｎ光谱方法研究了４０例胃癌与胃正常组织,所得的光谱经统计处理的发现,肿瘤光谱中水、蛋白质有关的ＯＨ（ＮＨ）伸缩振谱带,Ｃ＝Ｏ伸缩振动,Ｈ－Ｏ－Ｈ变角振动谱带明显强于正常组织的光谱,造成这一现象的原因可能是水与蛋白相互作用及氢键结构在正常组织和肿瘤组织中不同所致。     

Preliminary toxicological studies of selected water‐soluble polymer–platinum conjugates

The objective of this preliminary investigation of a number of water‐soluble carrier‐bound platinum(II) complexes for potential use in cancer chemotherapy was to assess the toxicological behavior of representative platinum coordination compounds anchored to, or incorporated into, polymeric carriers via polymer‐attached amine ligands. The conjugates included linear polyaspartamides (1–4, 6, 7), each composed of a major fraction of subunits featuring side‐chain‐attached tertiary amino groups as water‐solubilizing entities, and a minor fraction of subunits comprising the anchored platinum complexes, again as side‐chain components. Whereas in 1–4 the platinum atom was polymer‐bound through a single amino group, both 6 and 7 contained polymer‐attached cis‐diamine‐chelating ligands coordinating to the metal center. Also included in this study was a linear polyamidoamine (5), which contained a poly(ethylene oxide) segment in the backbone in addition to intrachain ethylenediamine segments acting as cis‐diamine chelating ligands for coordination to the platinum center. The compounds were injected as aqueous (phosphate‐buffered saline) solutions into the tail veins of CD‐1 mice (four to eight mice per conjugate), and the maximally tolerated dose was determined for each compound. For polyaspartamides 1–4 the dose levels ranged from about 25 mg Pt (kg body weight⁻¹) (in conjugate 4) to 500 mg Pt kg⁻¹ (in compound 1), the latter conjugate proving some 100‐fold less toxic than cisplatin (3–4 mg Pt kg⁻¹), which was included in this study for comparison. Low toxicity (tolerated dose 160 mg Pt kg⁻¹) was also observed for the intrachain cis‐diamineplatinum complex polymer (5). The polyaspartamide conjugates 6 and 7, on the other hand, both characterized by a cis‐diamineplatinum complex system in the side chain, were toxic even below the dose level of 20–25 mg Pt kg⁻¹. The preliminary findings of this study, while providing a basis for more extensive and broad‐based toxicological studies, will serve to direct and optimize structural conjugate designs in forthcoming synthetic programs. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cost-Sensitive KNN Algorithm for Cancer Prediction Based on Entropy Analysis

Early diagnosis of cancer is beneficial in the formulation of the best treatment plan; it can improve the survival rate and the quality of patient life. However, imaging detection and needle biopsy usually used not only find it difficult to effectively diagnose tumors at early stage, but also do great harm to the human body. Since the changes in a patient’s health status will cause changes in blood protein indexes, if cancer can be diagnosed by the changes in blood indexes in the early stage of cancer, it can not only conveniently track and detect the treatment process of cancer, but can also reduce the pain of patients and reduce the costs. In this paper, 39 serum protein markers were taken as research objects. The difference of the entropies of serum protein marker sequences in different types of patients was analyzed, and based on this, a cost-sensitive analysis model was established for the purpose of improving the accuracy of cancer recognition. The results showed that there were significant differences in entropy of different cancer patients, and the complexity of serum protein markers in normal people was higher than that in cancer patients. Although the dataset was rather imbalanced, containing 897 instances, including 799 normal instances, 44 liver cancer instances, and 54 ovarian cancer instances, the accuracy of our model still reached 95.21%. Other evaluation indicators were also stable and satisfactory; precision, recall, F1 and AUC reach 0.807, 0.833, 0.819 and 0.92, respectively. This study has certain theoretical and practical significance for cancer prediction and clinical application and can also provide a research basis for the intelligent medical treatment.     

A novel water-soluble BODIPY dye as red fluorescent probe for imaging hypoxic status of human cancer cells

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Biological activities of ophiobolin K and 6-epi-ophiobolin K produced by the endophytic fungus Aspergillus calidoustus

Endophytic fungi represent ubiquitous microbial organisms able to live in the tissues of different plants around the world and represent a prolific source of bioactive metabolites. In the present study, the endophytic fungus Aspergillus calidoustus was isolated from the medicinal plant Acanthospermum australe (Asteraceae), and identified using molecular, physiological and morphological methods. A methylene chloride crude extract of A. calidoustus has been produced and subjected to antifungal bioassay-directed fractionation which resulted in the isolation of the two bioactive compounds: ophiobolin K and 6-epi-ophiobolin K. These pure compounds displayed antifungal activity against fungal plant pathogens, protozoal activity against Trypanosoma cruzi, and cytotoxic activity against human tumoral cell lines. The results show that A. calidoustus was able to produce the antifungal and cytotoxic metabolites ophiobolin K and 6-epi-ophiobolin K, which may help the fungus to colonise and occupy the substratum as well as survive in natural environments.     

Drug Delivery Applications of Coaxial Electrospun Nanofibres in Cancer Therapy

Cancer is one of the most serious health problems and the second leading cause of death worldwide, and with an ageing and growing population, problems related to cancer will continue. In the battle against cancer, many therapies and anticancer drugs have been developed. Chemotherapy and relevant drugs are widely used in clinical practice; however, their applications are always accompanied by severe side effects. In recent years, the drug delivery system has been improved by nanotechnology to reduce the adverse effects of the delivered drugs. Among the different candidates, core–sheath nanofibres prepared by coaxial electrospinning are outstanding due to their unique properties, including their large surface area, high encapsulation efficiency, good mechanical property, multidrug loading capacity, and ability to govern drug release kinetics. Therefore, encapsulating drugs in coaxial electrospun nanofibres is a desirable method for controlled and sustained drug release. This review summarises the drug delivery applications of coaxial electrospun nanofibres with different structures and drugs for various cancer treatments.     

Expression and Characterization of Catalytic Domain of T Cell Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase(ΔTC-PTP)——Immunohistochemical Study of ΔTC-PTP Expression in Non-small Cell Lung Carcinomas

This study objective was to express and characterize the catalytic domain of the human T cell protein tyrosine phosphatase(ΔTC-PTP) and to study immunohistochemically the expression of ΔTC-PTP in human non-small cell lung cancers. ΔTC-PTP gene was PCR amplified with the cDNA of human TC-PTP as template, and cloned into the pT7 expression vector. The recombinant pT7-ΔTC-PTP was expressed in E.coli Rosetta(DE3) host cells and purified. The enzymatic characteristics of ΔTC-PTP including enzyme activity and kinetics assay were measured. The antiserum was prepared by immunizing rabbit with the purified recombinant ΔTC-PTP. Rabbit polyclonal antibody against ΔTC-PTP was purified by PVDF immobilized antigen affinity chromatography. Immunohistochemical staining of lung cancer tissues was performed with antibody against ΔTC-PTP protein. ΔTC-PTP gene was correctly cloned, expressed, and purified. The recombinant ΔTC-PTP had a highly catalytic activity of PTPase. Squamous cell lung carcinoma showed a significantly higher expression rate of ΔTC-PTP(76.92%, 10/13) than adenocarcinoma(57.14%, 4/7) and normal lung tissue(20%, 1/5). This study represents the first demonstration that ΔTC-PTP is highly expressed in human squamous cell lung carcinomas. In addition, this study provides an important basis for further studying the biological function of TC-PTP and its relationship with lung carcinomas and other diseases.