Analysis of flavonoids and antitumor activity of transgenic Saussurea involucrate / 中国中药杂志

The aim of this paper was to investigate the flavonoids of callus of transgenic and non-transgenic Saussurea involucrate and its antitumor activity on the esophageal cancer CaEs-17 cells. The species and content of mono-phenols were detected by high performance liquid chromatography. The growth of human esophageal cancer CaEs-17 cells was detected using CCK-8 assay, apoptosis morphology observation and flow cytometry. Expression of related apoptotic genes Bax and Bcl-2 were determined by qPCR. The results showed that the content of total flavonoids in the transgenic callus was 2.72 times that of the non-transgenic callus. The cyanidin-galactoside was detected in the transgenic callus, but not in the non-transgenic callus. The inhibitory effect of the extracts from the transgenic callus on CaEs-17 cells was more significant than that of the non-transgenic callus, and the IC₅₀ value had a decreased of 26.4%. Flow cytometry analysis results showed that the apoptosis induction effect of the extracts from the transgenic callus on CaEs-17 cells was significantly better than that of the non-transgenic callus. Fluorescence quantitative PCR analysis results showed that the extracts from the transgenic callus could up-regulate the expression of proapoptotic gene Bax and down-regulate the expression of apoptotic gene Bcl-2, and the regulation effect of the transgenic callus was more significant. Therefore, compared with the non-transgenic callus, the antitumor activity of the extracts from the callus of transgenic S. involucrate on the esophageal cancer CaEs-17 cells was significantly increased, which was closely related to the accumulation of cyanidin-galactoside and its metabolism-related flavonoid compounds in the transgenic callus.

Contribution of genotype and ethnicity to bone mineral density variation in Caucasians and Chinese: a test for five candidate genes for bone mass / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Ethnicity is shown to be one of important factors affecting bone mineral density (BMD). The present study was performed to compare the association of six markers for five candidate genes with BMD variation in two populations of different ethnicity, Caucasian and Chinese, and the contribution of genotype and ethnicity to this variation in the populations.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The studied restriction fragment length polymorphisms were BsaH I of the calcium-sensing receptor gene, SacI of the alpha2HS-glycoprotein (AHSG) gene, PvuII and XbaI of the oestrogen receptor alpha gene, ApaI of the vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene and BstBI of the parathyroid hormone gene. The association of these markers with BMD was analysed by one-way and two-way ANOVA with adjustment for covariates.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Two polymorphisms, AHSG-SacI and VDR-ApaI, showed no association with BMD, while the others were associated with BMD variation at some skeletal sites in either males or females. The polymorphisms indicated clear distinctions between the associations depending on ethnicity, gender and skeletal site. Similar patterns were observed in their contribution to the total population BMD variation. Ethnicity appears to have a larger effect on the total population BMD variation in females than in males. It may account, on the average, for about 2% total population BMD variation at the spine of females and about 1% at the hip of males and females.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The results of the present study suggest that significant interethnic differentiation at some loci may contribute to the significant interethnic difference in BMD. However, this contribution apparently is not large.</p>