Review on Research about Traditional Chinese Medicine in Cancer Stem Cell.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are small subpopulations of neoplastic cells within a tumor, which have self-renewal and differentiation abilities and could generate new tumors with few cells. Researches have showed that CSCs are considered the most likely reason for cancer recurrence and metastasis. Accumulating evidences have showed that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has significant effect on CSCs. It could inhibit the proliferation, self-renew, and multidifferentiation of CSCs. We aimed to summarize the theories of CSCs in TCM, the inhibitory effect, and the pathway on CSCs of TCM. This review will provide potential new strategies and alternative perspectives for CSCs treatments and basic research into complementary and alternative medicine.

Oxymatrine diminishes the side population and inhibits the expression of ß-catenin in MCF-7 breast cancer cells.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) play a critical role in both cancer initiation and relapse as they are resistant to most cytotoxic agents and able to proliferate indefinitely. The plant alkaloid oxymatrine has many biological activities including the ability to induce cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, which makes it a potentially useful agent for targeting cancer cells. In order to determine whether it has beneficial pharmacological properties to eradicate CSCs, we analyzed the effects of oxymatrine on MCF-7 breast cancer cells. Cancer stem-like cells' (side population, SP) identification and sorting were performed. The inhibitory effect of oxymatrine was evaluated on the sorted SP and non-SP cells. The results indicated that oxymatrine caused a dose-dependent reduction in the proliferation of MCF-7 cells and a decrease in SP cells. Wnt/ß-catenin signaling pathway was also examined by analyzing the expression of total ß-catenin and phosphorylated ß-catenin in cytoplasm, and the results showed that the growth inhibitory effects of oxymatrine treatment on MCF-7 cells may be due to the inhibition of SP and Wnt/ß-catenin signaling pathway. Further work is warranted to explore whether oxymatrine may be a useful novel therapeutic drug for targeting breast CSCs.

[Effect of feiliuping ointment and its disassembled prescriptions on dendritic cell of mice with transplanted Lewis lung cancer].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the possible immuno-regulating mechanism of action of Chinese drugs in different combinations (assembled depending different therapeutic principles) through observing the effects of Feiliuping ointment (FLP) and its disassembled prescriptions on dendritic cells (DC) in blood, spleen and tumor in mice with transplanted Lewis lung cancer (LLC). METHODS: Percentages of DC in blood, spleen and tumor of mice with transplanted LLC treated by FLP and its disassembled prescriptions were estimated, and the S-100 protein expression in tumor tissue was detected by immunohistochemical method. RESULTS: The percentage of DC (per thousand) in tumor bearing mice was 0.43 +/- 0.26 in peripheral blood, and 0.32 +/- 0.16 in spleen, significantly lower than those in normal mice 4.68 +/- 0.90 and 3.68 +/- 1.58, P<0.01); and S-100 protein expression in tumor was weakened. After FLP treatment, the percentages of DC (per thousand) in tumor bearing mice were increased to 2.55 +/- 0.29 in peripheral blood and 2.70 +/- 0.63 in spleen (P<0.01), with the S-100 protein expression in tumor tissue up-regulated significantly (P<0.01). Study on different assembled prescriptions of FLP showed that the qi supplementing components of FLP displayed the optimal actions. CONCLUSION: FLP, a Chinese herbal prescription made depending on Chinese medicine therapeutic principle of strengthening body resistance and consolidating constitution, has an obvious anti-tumor effect, to improve the immunological anti-tumor function of organism by promoting the amount and expression of DC might be the possible intrinsic mechanism.

[A study on the relationship between the dendritic cell subsets and immunology state of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer].

BACKGROUND: It has been known that there are declines of dendritic cell (DC) count and its function in the peripheral blood of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which are remarkably related to the proceeding and prognosis of NSCIC. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship and clinical significance between the DC subsets (CD11c+DC and CD123+DC) and immunology state of patients with advanced NSCLC. METHODS: Flow cytometry was used to detect DC subsets, T cell subsets, NK cell percentage in the peripheral blood of 40 patients with advanced NSCLC and 10 healthy controls. RESULTS: The expression of CD11c+DC (0.38%±0.18%) in the peripheral blood of advanced NSCLC patients, was decreased significantly compared with that of normal controls (0.66%±0.24%) (P < 0.01). The expression of CD123+DC in the peripheral blood of advanced NSCLC patients was (0.28±0.17)%, with no significant difference compared with that of normal controls (0.27%±0.11%) (P > 0.05). The percentage of CD3+ T cell and CD4+/CD8+ of patients with advanced NSCLC were significantly lower than those of normal controls (P < 0.01 and P < 0.05), and the percentage of CD8+ and NK cell of patients were higher than those of normal controls (P < 0.05). The correlation analysis showed that CD123+DC percentage was positively correlated to CD3+T cell percentage (P < 0.05) and negatively correlated to NK cell percentage (P < 0.01). The expression of DC subsets correlated with KPS and chemotherapy history of patients (P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The advanced NSCLC may induce significant decreasing expression of CD11c+DC and may induce significant decrease of immunology state. There are close relationship among the expression of DC subsets and the immunology state of patients as well as the clinical biological behaviors of patients with advanced NSCLC.