Comparative proteomic analysis uncovers potential biomarkers involved in the anticancer effect of Scutellarein in human gastric cancer cells

Autophagy Induction by Scutellaria Flavones in Cancer: Recent Advances

In parallel with a steady rise in cancer incidence worldwide, the scientific community is increasingly focused on finding novel, safer and more efficient modalities for managing this disease. Over the past decades, natural products have been described as a significant source of new structural leads for novel drug candidates. Scutellaria root is one of the most studied natural products because of its anticancer potential. Besides just describing the cytotoxic properties of plant constituents, their molecular mechanisms of action in different cancer types are equally important. Therefore, this review article focuses on the role of the Scutellaria flavones wogonin, baicalein, baicalin, scutellarein and scutellarin in regulating the autophagic machinery in diverse cancer models, highlighting these molecules as potential lead compounds for the fight against malignant neoplasms. The knowledge that autophagy can function as a dual-edged sword, acting in both a pro- and antitumorigenic manner, further complicates the issue, revealing an amazing property of flavonoids that behave either as anti- or proautophagic agents.

Scutellarein in organic solvents: changes in spectroscopic properties caused by solute-solvent interactions

In this work, the spectroscopic properties of scutellarein (6-hydroxyapigenin) were studied in three organic solvents (methanol, acetonitrile and N,N-dimethylformamide) taking into account possible ionization and isomerization (tautomerization) processes. Significant visible colour changes were reported in the case of scutellarein in N,N-dimethylformamide. It was shown that isomerization processes can be one of the reasons for the observed changes in absorption spectrum, because some scutellarein isomers have an absorption band at about 623 nm while other forms of scutellarein show no absorption in this region. Moreover, spectroscopic properties were studied for cases of scutellarein in acetonitrile and methanol. The molar extinction coefficient has been found in the case of methanol solution which could be used to determine scutellarein concentration in this solvent using spectroscopic methods in future studies. The quantum-chemical calculations were performed for neutral and anionic forms and for two types of possible isomers of scutellarein in each solvent. The results help explain the experimentally observed rising absorption in the 500-750 nm wavelength range. Another important result of the quantum-chemical calculations is a prediction of excited state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) in scutellarein. This result has been obtained for free molecule in vacuum and in the cases of methanol, acetonitrile and N,N-dimethylformamide solution. It was found that the excited state energy of the normal molecular form is higher than the excited state energy of the tautomer form of scutellarein.

Advances in High Throughput Proteomics Profiling in Establishing Potential Biomarkers for Gastrointestinal Cancer

Gastrointestinal cancers (GICs) remain the most diagnosed cancers and accounted for the highest cancer-related death globally. The prognosis and treatment outcomes of many GICs are poor because most of the cases are diagnosed in advanced metastatic stages. This is primarily attributed to the deficiency of effective and reliable early diagnostic biomarkers. The existing biomarkers for GICs diagnosis exhibited inadequate specificity and sensitivity. To improve the early diagnosis of GICs, biomarkers with higher specificity and sensitivity are warranted. Proteomics study and its functional analysis focus on elucidating physiological and biological functions of unknown or annotated proteins and deciphering cellular mechanisms at molecular levels. In addition, quantitative analysis of translational proteomics is a promising approach in enhancing the early identification and proper management of GICs. In this review, we focus on the advances in mass spectrometry along with the quantitative and functional analysis of proteomics data that contributes to the establishment of biomarkers for GICs including, colorectal, gastric, hepatocellular, pancreatic, and esophageal cancer. We also discuss the future challenges in the validation of proteomics-based biomarkers for their translation into clinics.

OMICS Applications for Medicinal Plants in Gastrointestinal Cancers: Current Advancements and Future Perspectives

Gastrointestinal cancers refer to a group of deadly malignancies of the gastrointestinal tract and organs of the digestive system. Over the past decades, considerable amounts of medicinal plants have exhibited potent anticancer effects on different types of gastrointestinal cancers. OMICS, systems biology approaches covering genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics, are broadly applied to comprehensively reflect the molecular profiles in mechanistic studies of medicinal plants. Single- and multi-OMICS approaches facilitate the unravelling of signalling interaction networks and key molecular targets of medicinal plants with anti-gastrointestinal cancer potential. Hence, this review summarizes the applications of various OMICS and advanced bioinformatics approaches in examining therapeutic targets, signalling pathways, and the tumour microenvironment in response to anticancer medicinal plants. Advances and prospects in this field are also discussed.

GeneCloudOmics: A Data Analytic Cloud Platform for High-Throughput Gene Expression Analysis

Gene expression profiling techniques, such as DNA microarray and RNA-Sequencing, have provided significant impact on our understanding of biological systems. They contribute to almost all aspects of biomedical research, including studying developmental biology, host-parasite relationships, disease progression and drug effects. However, the high-throughput data generations present challenges for many wet experimentalists to analyze and take full advantage of such rich and complex data. Here we present GeneCloudOmics, an easy-to-use web server for high-throughput gene expression analysis that extends the functionality of our previous ABioTrans with several new tools, including protein datasets analysis, and a web interface. GeneCloudOmics allows both microarray and RNA-Seq data analysis with a comprehensive range of data analytics tools in one package that no other current standalone software or web-based tool can do. In total, GeneCloudOmics provides the user access to 23 different data analytical and bioinformatics tasks including reads normalization, scatter plots, linear/non-linear correlations, PCA, clustering (hierarchical, k-means, t-SNE, SOM), differential expression analyses, pathway enrichments, evolutionary analyses, pathological analyses, and protein-protein interaction (PPI) identifications. Furthermore, GeneCloudOmics allows the direct import of gene expression data from the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus database. The user can perform all tasks rapidly through an intuitive graphical user interface that overcomes the hassle of coding, installing tools/packages/libraries and dealing with operating systems compatibility and version issues, complications that make data analysis tasks challenging for biologists. Thus, GeneCloudOmics is a one-stop open-source tool for gene expression data analysis and visualization. It is freely available at http://combio-sifbi.org/GeneCloudOmics.

Assessment of Anti-Inflammatory and Antioxidant Effects of Citrus unshiu Peel (CUP) Flavonoids on LPS-Stimulated RAW 264.7 Cells

Citrus unshiu is a popular medicinal herb in several Asian countries, in particular South Korea. C. unshiu peel (CUP) has several biologically active compounds, including flavonoids. Hence, this research aimed to label the flavonoids from CUP by HPLC-MS/MS analysis and examine their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant potential on LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophages. A total of four flavonoids (Rutin, naringin, hesperidin, and poncirin) were characterized, and their contents were quantified from CUP. It showed that the naringin is rich in CUP. Further, treatment with the flavonoids at concentrations of 2.5 and 5 μg/mL had no effect on the cell viability of RAW 264.7 macrophages. On the other hand, it decreased the production and expression of inflammatory mediators and pro-inflammatory cytokines such as NO, PGE2, TNF-α, IL-1β, iNOS, and COX2 in the LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophages. In addition, flavonoids treatment inhibited the NF-κB activation by downregulating the p-p65 and p-IκBα proteins expression. Furthermore, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production considerably decreased at the same concentrations while antioxidant enzyme activity increased in the LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophages. Collectively, our results show that CUP flavonoids have the potential to decrease inflammation and oxidative damage.

Scutellarein relieves the death and inflammation of tubular epithelial cells in ischemic kidney injury by degradation of COX-2 protein

OBJECTIVES

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a clinical syndrome that usually caused by ischemia/reperfusion (I/R). Previous studies have revealed the protection of scutellarein against ischemia in nervous system. This study aimed to demonstrate the potential of scutellarein in ischemic AKI.

METHODS

Animal model of ischemic AKI was established by clamping bilateral kidney pedicles in Sprague-Dawley rats. HK-2 cells were exposed to oxygen glucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R) to induce a cell model of AKI. The effects of scutellarein pre-treatment were detected by H&E staining, TUNEL, ELISA, CCK-8, LDH activity assay, ROS generation, flow cytometry, qRT-PCR and western blotting. Bioinformatic analysis was performed to probe the targets of scutellarein.

RESULTS

The blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and serum creatinine (SCr) levels in rats treated with scutellarein were lower than that in model groups. Scutellarein suppressed the pathological injury of kidney, and dose-dependently inhibited the apoptosis and pro-inflammatory cytokines release (IL-1β, IL-6 and IL-18). Scutellarein prevented OGD/R-induced HK-2 cell loss and cytotoxicity. ROS generation, apoptosis, and inflammation induced by OGD/R were all inhibited by scutellarein. By searching on the TCMSP and Symmap databases, COX-2 was screened out as a target of scutellarein. Scutellarein has no significant impacts on COX-2 mRNA expression, but could inhibit its protein level. Scutellarein promoted COX-2 protein degradation via enhancing autophagy. Furthermore, overexpression of COX-2 partly eliminated the renal protection of scutellarein in HK-2 cells.

CONCLUSIONS

Scutellarein was suggested as a renal protective agent against ischemia-induced damage in AKI. The protective properties of scutellarein may be through inhibition of COX-2.

Evaluating the potential risk by probing the site-selective binding of rutin-Pr(III) complex to human serum albumin

Having reported that rare earth elements displayed potential toxicity in vivo, often be found in soil, plants and etc., which might be easily chelated with the natural functional molecule rutin to form rutin metal complexes, ultimately entering the human body by means of food chain. However, few reports paid the attention on the toxicology of the complexes consisting of rutin with rare earth ions. Here, we focused on the potential toxicity by probing the site-selective binding of the rutin-rare earth ions complexes to human serum albumin (HSA). As a proof-of-concept, we selected Pr³⁺ as the representative to conjugate with rutin to form rutin-Pr(III) complex, which was further applied to interact with HSA in aqueous solution. The results exhibited that the rutin-Pr(III) complex primary bound to the hydrophobic cavity at site II (subdomain IIIA) of HSA through hydrogen bonding and van der Waals force. Through the thermomechanical analysis, we found this binding process was spontaneous because of the negative ΔG. We believe that this work may offer a new insight into understanding the physiological effects (e.g. toxicology) of rutin and rare earth ions, which could be helpful to guide their rational use in the agriculture and environment-related industries.