Jiedu Recipe, a compound Chinese herbal medicine, inhibits cancer stemness in hepatocellular carcinoma via Wnt/β-catenin pathway under hypoxia / 中西医结合学报

OBJECTIVE@#Jiedu Recipe (JR), a Chinese herbal remedy, has been shown to prolong overall survival time and decrease recurrence and metastasis rates in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This work investigated the mechanism of JR in HCC treatment.@*METHODS@#The chemical constituents of JR were detected using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The potential anti-HCC mechanism of JR was screened using network pharmacology and messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) microarray chip assay, followed by experimental validation in human HCC cells (SMMC-7721 and Huh7) in vitro and a nude mouse subcutaneous transplantation model of HCC in vivo. HCC cell characteristics of proliferation, migration and invasion under hypoxic setting were investigated using thiazolyl blue tetrazolium bromide, wound healing and Transwell assays, respectively. Image-iT™ Hypoxia Reagent was added to reveal hypoxic conditions. Stem cell sphere formation assay was used to detect the stemness. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers like E-cadherin, vimentin and α-smooth muscle actin, and pluripotent transcription factors including nanog homeobox, octamer-binding transcription factor 4, and sex-determining region Y box protein 2 were analyzed using Western blotting and real-time polymerase chain reaction. Western blot was performed to ascertain the anti-HCC effect of JR under hypoxia involving the Wnt/β-catenin pathway.@*RESULTS@#According to network pharmacology and mRNA microarray chip analysis, JR may potentially act on hypoxia and inhibit the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. In vitro and in vivo experiments showed that JR significantly decreased hypoxia, and suppressed HCC cell features of proliferation, migration and invasion; furthermore, the hypoxia-induced increases in EMT and stemness marker expression in HCC cells were inhibited by JR. Results based on the co-administration of JR and an agonist (LiCl) or inhibitor (IWR-1-endo) verified that JR suppressed HCC cancer stem-like properties under hypoxia by blocking the Wnt/β-catenin pathway.@*CONCLUSION@#JR exerts potent anti-HCC effects by inhibiting cancer stemness via abating the Wnt/β-catenin pathway under hypoxic conditions. Please cite this article as: Guo BJ, Ruan Y, Wang YJ, Xiao CL, Zhong ZP, Cheng BB, Du J, Li B, Gu W, Yin ZF. Jiedu Recipe, a compound Chinese herbal medicine, inhibits cancer stemness in hepatocellular carcinoma via Wnt/β-catenin pathway under hypoxia. J Integr Med. 2023; 21(5): 474-486.

Preventive effects of a flavonoid myricitrin on the formation of azoxymethane-induced premalignant lesions in colons of rats.

The preventive effect of dietary exposure to a flavonoid myricitrin of azoxymethane (AOM)-induced aberrant crypt foci (ACF) and beta-catenin-accumulated crypts (BCAC) formation was investigated in male F344 rats. Thirty-four rats were divided randomly into five experimental groups. Rats in groups 1-3 were given subcutaneous injections of AOM (15 mg/kg body weight) once a week for 3 weeks. Starting 1 week before the first injection of AOM, rats in groups 2 and 3 were fed a diet containing 500 or 1000 ppm myricitrin, respectively, for 11 weeks. Rats in group 4 were fed a diet containing 1000 ppm myricitrin. Rats in groups 1 and 5 were given the basal diet alone during the study. The experiment was terminated 11 weeks after the start. The frequency of ACF per colon in group 3 treated with AOM and 1000 ppm myricitrin was significantly lower than that in group 1 treated with AOM alone (p<0.01). Furthermore, dietary myricitrin at both doses (groups 2 and 3) significantly inhibited the formation of BCAC when compared to group 1 (p<0.05). These results indicate that myricitrin had possible chemopreventive effects in the present short-term colon carcinogenesis bioassays and suggest that longer exposure may cause suppression of tumor development.