Progress in anti-cancer research of American ginseng: with an example of colorectal cancer / 药学学报

Cancer is a group of various diseases, all of which involve unregulated cell growth. Many currently used chemotherapeutic drugs are derived from botanicals. Thus, searching botanical sources for novel oncology medications, including identifying the lead compounds and their derivatives for chemoprevention, is an essential step in advancing cancer therapeutics. This article mainly focuses on the data from our previous American ginseng anti-colon cancer studies. In addition to the potential role of American ginseng on cancer, the herb as an adjuvant for cancer treatment is presented, including describing the attenuation of adverse events induced by chemotherapeutic agents and increasing of quality of cancer patient life. Since heat-treated American ginseng and ginsenoside gut microbiome metabolites showed significant increases in cancer chemopreventive effects, active constituents of the steamed herb and their gut metabolites should be clearly identified, and the structure-activity relationship should be further explored. Data obtained from herbal medicine studies and clinical trials will help develop useful anticancer agents.

Effects of processing and extracting methods on active components in Radix Scutellariae by HPLC analysis / 中国中药杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To compare and analyze the effects of the contents of the active components in Radix Scutellariae by different processing and extracting methods.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>The raw and processed Radix Scutellariae were used, and the concentration of baicalin, wogonoside, baicalein, wogonin were determined by HPLC after five extracting techniques. HPLC method was performed on methanol-acetonitrile-water-acetic acid (18: 25: 57: 0.2) as the mobile phase at 30 C; The chromatographic column was Agilent Zorbax Extend-C18 (4.6 mm x 250 mm, 5 microm); The flow rate was 0.8 mL min(-1), and the detection wavelength was 275 nm.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>the ratios of baicalein and wogonin in raw material were 5.41%, 1.30% respectively by enzymatic extraction, which is higher than other extracting methods by raw material; The ratios of baicalin and wogonoside in raw material were 10.11% and 3.55% by ethanol of 60%, which is higher than other extracting methods; Different extracting methods have no evident effects on processed materials, enzymatic extraction is the best. The ratio of baicalin, wogonoside and baicalein, wogonin is 10.63%, 3.60% and 1.54%, 0.59%.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Different methods have evident extracting effects on the four active components with raw material, but have no evident effects with processed material. According to different active components most suitable extracting method should be adopted.</p>