Latest ArticlesColorectal cancer (CRC), a prevalent and deadly digestive malignancy, primarily causes death through recurrence and metastasis. Current treatments include surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy, but they have significant side effects and high recurrence rates. Research shows traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) can alleviate symptoms, reduce adverse reactions, enhance quality of life, prevent recurrence and metastasis post-surgery, and improve survival rates. This review explores TCM's theoretical framework, advantages in CRC management, and potential in modulating intestinal flora for CRC prevention and treatment.
Resiquimod (R848) belongs to the class of weak base organic compounds that are derivatives of imidazole quinoline and is a potent agonist of Toll-like receptor (TLR) 7/8. R848 can be considered an effective immune adjuvant as it has the ability to activate different immune cells and regulate innate and adaptive immunity. A number of researches done recently have reported R848 potent anti-tumor capacity, especially when combined with other cytotoxic therapies. Nonetheless, some hurdles remain with the clinical use of R848 such as its limited ability to reach the tumor and likelihood of inflammation and autoimmune responses which might result from repeated delivery of high dosages of the drug. Nanoscale drug delivery systems may overcome some of these challenges. Various nanoformulations, including liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, biocarriers, inclusion compound, metal-organic frameworks and inorganic nanoparticles, as well as several R848 prodrugs or derivatives-baesd nanoparticles, have been incorporated into present R848 delivery platforms. This article reviews the physicochemical properties, immune regulatory mechanisms and nano drug delivery systems of R848, in order to provide reference and support for anti-tumor research and new drug development.
Wound healing caused by skin trauma and chronic diseases is often complicated and difficult due to infection. In such cases, the wound healing process is not only a long and continuous one, but also prone to scar repair. Conventional dressings and antibiotic treatments suffer from issues such as low drug delivery efficiency and systemic toxicity. In recent years, microneedle technology has been widely used to reduce infection and promote wound healing. Microneedles can not only penetrate the skin stratum corneum and biofilm to enhance drug delivery efficiency and reduce drug side effects, but also can be combined with a variety of materials to achieve multiple treatments and monitoring of wounds. This article will discuss the healing mechanism of infected wounds, the classification of microneedles, and their applications in the treatment of infected wounds.
Plant-derived extracellular vesicles (PDEVs) are lipid bilayer-structured nanovesicles secreted by plant cells, recognized as excellent drug carriers due to their high stability, safety, and modifiability. As an emerging drug delivery system, PDEVs are gaining increasing attention. This review systematically summarizes the latest research progress on the preparation, characterization, engineering transformation, drug loading methods, and the applications and advantages of PDEVs as drug carriers. Finally, the future development directions of PDEVs in drug delivery are discussed.
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the primary pathological type of lung cancer. Osimertinib, as a third-generation EGFR-TKI (epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor) targeted drug, effectively prolong the progression-free survival of patients with EGFR-mutated NSCLC. However, drug resistance limits the efficacy of osimertinib. Traditional Chinese medicine can effectively delay the resistance to EGFR-TKIs. In this study, Cucurbitacin B (CuB) was investigated to analyze its pharmacological effects in osimertinib-resistant NSCLC cells through cell viability, migration, and invasion experiments. Public databases were used to screen potential targets of CuB in osimertinib-resistant NSCLC cells, and the interactions between CuB and potential targets were verified through molecular docking, cellular thermal shift assay (CETSA), and microscale thermophoresis (MST). Western blot was used to detect the effects of CuB on downstream pathways of the targets. The results showed that CuB significantly reduced the proliferation activity of osimertinib-resistant NSCLC cells and inhibited the migration and invasion abilities of tumor cells. Mechanistically, CuB inhibited the expression of ERK and AKT molecules by binding to the tyrosine kinase receptor AXL. In summary, CuB exhibits resistance to osimertinib-resistant NSCLC by inhibiting the migration and invasion of resistant cells through regulating the abnormal activation of the AXL-ERK/AKT axis. This study provides a basis for the pre-clinical in vitro efficacy of CuB in the treatment of osimertinib targeted resistance in NSCLC and theoretical support for the development of clinical drug combinations.
This study mainly explored the anti-tumor effects of programmed death ligand 1/ transforming growth factor-β (PD-L1/TGF-β) bispecific antibody drugs in the huHSC-NCG mouse brain orthotopic transplantation model of human glioma cell U251-luciferase (all animal experiments in this study were approved by the Experimental Animal Ethics Committee of GemPharmatech, and the ethics review number is GPTAP20230706-3). The antibody-antigen binding activity of the PD-L1/TGF-β bispecific antibody drugs to PD-L1 target on U251 cells was detected by flow cytometry in vitro. The antitumor activity of PD-L1/TGF-β bispecific antibody drugs was evaluated using a brain glioma in orthotopic implantation model with humanized immune system. Live animal imaging and brain tissue (including tumor tissue) weight results showed that the PD-L1/TGF-β dual antibody drug had an inhibitory effect on the growth of glioma in situ. The results of drug content (ELISA assay) and drug distribution (immunohistochemistry assay) in brain tissue showed that PD-L1/TGF-β dual antibody could enter the brain glioma and play the function of immune checkpoint, thus playing an inhibitory role in brain glioma. Immunofluorescence staining of mouse brain tissue showed that the drug activated the immune system and had synergistic anti-tumor effect with the immune system. These results showed that the PD-L1/TGF-β bispecific antibody drugs have broken through the blood-tumor barrier in orthotopic implantation model of mouse brain glioma and demonstrated a strong anti-tumor effect. In conclusion, the inhibitory effects of PD-L1/TGF-β bispecific antibody drugs on human brain glioma provides a new strategy for the treatment of human brain glioma.
Tumor immunotherapy represented by blocking programmed cell death protein 1/programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) has gained better therapeutic effect in lung cancer treatment, and the development of small molecule drugs to block PD-1/PD-L1 provides a new strategy for lung cancer immunotherapy. In this study, we applied an in vitro cell model to investigate the regulation of PD-L1 expression and the mechanism of action of baicalin on A549 lung cancer cells. The effects of baicalin on the viability of A549 cells were detected by CCK8 assay; the expression of PD-L1 protein in A549 cells was detected by Western blot; the mechanism of baicalin cytotoxicity and its correlation with PD-L1 protein expression were investigated by using small-molecule inhibitors of apoptosis and autophagy; the formation of autophagic vesicles in A549 cells treated with baicalin was observed under transmission electron microscope. And the alterations of acid autophagic vesicles and autophagic lysosomes were observed under fluorescence microscope. The results of CCK8 experiments showed that baicalin (12.5-400 μmol·L-1) inhibited the proliferation of A549 cells in a dose-dependent manner; at the same time, the elevation of PD-L1 protein expression after interferon-γ (IFN-γ) interference could be reduced with the increase of baicalin concentration; on the other hand, treatment with autophagy inhibitors, wortmannin, and chloroquine, could call back the baicalin-induced cytotoxicity, transmission electron microscopy and fluorescence microscopy showed that the number of autophagic vesicles increased after baicalin treatment of A549 cells, and Western blot results showed that baicalin promoted the expression of autophagy-related proteins LC3-Ⅱ/Ⅰ and beclin-1; the number of baicalin-induced acidic autophagic vesicles in A549 cells was attenuated after the intervention of wortmannin, and at the same time the LC3-Ⅱ/Ⅰ expression was inhibited and the inhibitory effect on PD-L1 was regulated. The above results suggest that baicalin may exert antitumor effects by activating the autophagy protein LC3 in A549 cells to reduce the expression of PD-L1. This study lays the foundation for baicalin to have the ability to be developed as a small molecule blocker of the PD-1/PD-L1 signaling pathway.
The chemical constituents of the fruits of Forsythia suspensa (Thunb.) Vahl were investigated by using chromatographic techniques (silica gel, MCI, and sephadex LH-20 gel column chromatography, etc). Fourteen compounds were isolated from the 95% ethanol extract of F. suspensa, and their structures were identified by HR-ESI-MS, NMR, and calculated electronic circular dichroism (ECD) methods. The compounds included labdane diterpenes (1-6), clerodane diterpene (7), norlabdane diterpene (8), norclerodane diterpene (9), oleanane triterpenoid (10), ursane triterpenoids (11, 12), lupane triterpenoids (13, 14). Among them, compound 1 was a new compound and compounds 3-9, 11, and 12 were obtained from this plant for the first time. The inhibitory effect of these compounds on lipopolysaccharide-induced nitric oxide production in mouse macrophage RAW 264.7 cells also was evaluated. Unfortunately, none of these compounds exhibited significant inhibitory activity.
In this thesis, we propose to establish a phage display method for screening adalimumab (ADM)-specific binding peptide to provide a particular element of recognition for clinical studies of ADM, and to successfully establish an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (i-ELISA) based on this peptide for clinical detection of ADM. With ADM as the target molecule, five rounds of peptide elution were performed using phage display technology by putting it into the M13 linear dodecapeptide library. By measuring the titer of each round of eluate, it was found that the recovery rate increased from 7.28×10-6 to 1.55×10-3, indicating that the peptides binding to ADM in the eluate were continuously enriched, and the enrichment effect was better; the fifth round of screening amplicons were sequenced, and it was found that five peptide sequences appeared with high frequency, which were considered to be potentially able to bind specifically to ADM and were synthesised; the specific binding ability of the five peptide sequences to ADM was verified and identified by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and ELISA experiments, respectively, and the results showed that the first peptide sequence (Pep1) and the second peptide sequence (Pep2) showed specific binding to ADM, with the affinity constants (KD) of 7.91×10-5 mol·L-1 and 1.67×10-5 mol·L-1, respectively, and of which the affinity constant of Pep1 with ADM isotype antibody IgG was 1.35×10-4 mol·L-1, which was one order of magnitude lower than that with ADM, and thus Pep1 was determined to be a specific binding peptide for ADM. Based on Pep1, an indirect ELISA method for the analysis of the antibody-drug ADM was successfully established. With the increasing concentration of ADM the OD450 value showed a regular change, and the method can be used for clinical ADM blood concentration monitoring. In this study, we obtained a peptide that can specifically bind to ADM, and this peptide sequence can be used as a specific recognition element for ADM, which not only enables the monitoring of ADM blood concentration, but also provides an effective tool for the accurate qualitative and quantitative quantification of ADM in vivo and ex vivo, and at the same time provides a new strategy and idea for the discovery of recognition elements of other monoclonal antibody drugs.
The main chemical components of Gandoufumu Decoction (GDFMD) were analyzed and identified using ultra-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-TOF/MSE). We utilized a ZORBAX RRHD Eclipse Plus C18 column (2.1 mm × 100 mm, 1.8 μm) with a gradient elution of 0.1% formic acid in water and acetonitrile as mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.2 mL·min-1 and a column temperature of 35 ℃. The mass spectrometry was analyzed using an electrospray ionization source (ESI) in positive and negative ion modes. The UPLC-Q-TOF/MSE was used to detect and analyze the complex mass spectra and the chemical composition of the GDFMD. The results show that 102 compounds were identified in GDFMD, 26 flavonoids, 22 terpenoids, 19 saponins, 10 phenylpropanoids, and 25 other components. The established qualitative method can rapidly and efficiently identify the chemical components of GDFMD, providing a scientific basis for the quality evaluation and clinical application of GDFMD.
No. 86 Xueyuan South Road, Haidian District, Beijing
010-62662699(Operation and Technical Support)
qkjq@cast.org.cn
Copyright © 2025 China Association for Science and Technology. All rights reserved. For all open access content, the relevant licensing terms apply.
Sponsored by the Office of the Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization of CAST, and supported by Science and Technology Review Publishing House
