The formation of learning and memory is regulated by synaptic plasticity in hippocampal neurons. Here we explored how gestational exposure to dexamethasone, a synthetic glucocorticoid commonly used in clinical practice, has lasting effects on offspring's learning and memory. Adult offspring rats of prenatal dexamethasone exposure (PDE) displayed significant impairments in novelty recognition and spatial learning memory, with some phenotypes maintained transgenerationally. PDE impaired synaptic transmission of hippocampal excitatory neurons in offspring of F1 to F3 generations, and abnormalities of neurotransmitters and receptors would impair synaptic plasticity and lead to impaired learning and memory, but these changes failed to carry over to offspring of F5 and F7 generations. Mechanistically, altered hippocampal miR-133a-3p-SIRT1-CDK5-NR2B signaling axis in PDE multigeneration caused inhibition of excitatory synaptic transmission, which might be related to oocyte-specific high expression and transmission of miR-133a-3p. Together, PDE affects hippocampal excitatory synaptic transmission, with lasting consequences across generations, and CDK5 in offspring's peripheral blood might be used as an early-warning marker for fetal-originated learning and memory impairment.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of Qinxiang Qingjie oral liquid(QXQJ)on growth and development after repeated administration of 18 d to postnatal day 4(PND4)rats.METHODS The number and sex of PND2 pups were adjusted using the cross-breeding method.These pups were ran-domly divided into the normal control,QXQJ 3.45,10.35 and 28.05 g·kg-1 groups.PND4,juvenile rats were ig given QXQJ every day,while the normal control group was given pure water,once a day,for 18 d,before observation of 3 weeks was resumed.During the experiment,the general condition,body mass,growth and development,physique,bone,hematology and coagulation of the rats in each group were detected.RESULTS 18 d after continuous administration of QXQJ,there was no obvious effect on the food intake,growth and development,nerve reflex,spontaneous behavior,hematology,coagula-tion,blood biochemistry,immunity,growth hormone,histopathology and other examination indexes of juve-nile rats.From PND5,juvenile rats in the QXQJ 10.35 and 28.05 g·kg-1groups developed yellow-brown soft or loose stools and abdominal distention,but the symptoms generally recovered at PND22.The body mass,top-rump length,tail length and limb length of the juvenile rats in the 28.05 g·kg-1 group were signifi-cantly lower at PND7(P<0.05),but recovered one week after drug withdrawal.The bone mineral specific gravity and bone mineral density of the 28.05 g·kg-1 group were significantly lower than those of the normal control group at PND22(P<0.05),but there was no significant difference at PND42.CONCLU-SION QXQJ can cause such indigestion symptoms as yellow brown soft stool or loose stool and abdominal enlargement in unweaned juvenile rats,thus affecting the physical development indicators of rats,but the symptoms can recover after withdrawal of medication or withdrawal from milk.The no observed adverse effect level(NOAEL)of QXQJ administered to 4-day-old rats for 18 d is 3.45 g·kg-1.

Objective To study the synergistic antitumor effects of quercetin and cisplatin in human prostate cancer PC3 cells and LNCaP cells.Methods Twelve h after PC3 cells or LNCaP cells were seeded,different dose of quercetin (10 μmol/L,20 μmol/L,40 μmol/L,80 μmol/L,160 μmol/L) or cisplatin (0.01 μmol/L,0.05 μmol/L,0.1 μmol/L,1 μmol/L,10 μmol/L),or quercetin (20 μmol/L) + cisplatin (0.01 μmol/L,0.05 μmol/L,0.1 μmol/L,1 μmol/L,10 μmol/L) were added for48 h and then the antiproliferative effects were detected with MTT assay.After incubated with quercetin (20 μmol/L) or cisplatin (0.05 μ mol/L),or quercetin (20 μ mol/L) + cisplatin (0.05 μmol/L) for48 h,cell cycle distribution and apoptosis of PC3 cells or LNCaP cells were detected by flow cytometer,PI and Annexin V staining.Protein expression was detected by Western blotting.Results After treatment with quercetin or cisplatin alone,the IC50 were (0.99 ± 0.13) μmol/L,(0.75 ± 0.09) μmol/L and (91.60 ± 6.10) μ mol/L,(72.90±4.70) μ mol/L for LNCaP cells or PC3 cells,respectively;The IC50 were (0.11±0.06)μ mol/L,(0.07±0.02) μmol/L for quercetin + cisplatin treatment (Compared with quercetin,P＜0.01 ;Compared with cisplatin,P＜0.05.After treatment with cisplatin or quercetin + cisplatin for 48 h,the S phase percent of LNCaP cells or PC3 cells were (22.4±2.7)％,(31.2±2.4)％ and (20.1±1.6)％,(31.0±2.5)％,respectively,(Compared with control,P＜0.05,however,treatment with quercetin alone has no significant difference (Compared with control,P＞0.05).After treatment with cisplatin or quercetin + cisplatin for 48 h,the apoptotic percent of LNCaP cells or PC3 cells were (14.8 ± 1.9) ％,(39.6 ± 3.1) ％ and (11.5± 1.2) ％,(34.1 ±3.3) ％,respectively,(compared with control,P ＜ 0.05,however,treatment with quercetin alone had no significant difference (compared with control,P＞0.05).After treatment with quercetin alone for 48 h,the activation of caspase-3,caspase-8 and caspase-9 were slightly increased,the expressions of Bax and p21 were up-regulated,the expressions of Bcl-2 and CDK2 were down-regulated.Furthermore,these effect of cisplatin and quercetin + cisplatin were significantly enhanced (compared with quercetin,P＜0.05;compared with quercetin,P＜0.01,respectively.Conclusions The combination modality with quercetin and cisplatin has a better treatment effect in vitro not only in androgen-dependent LNCaP cells but also in androgen-independent PC3 cells.

Treatment with the combination of Chinese herbs and cytotoxic chemotherapies showed a higher survival rate in clinical trials. In this report, the results demonstrated that the tanshinone II A, a key component of Salvia miltiorrhiza bunge, when it is combined with the cytotoxic drug cisplatin showed synergistic antitumor effects on human prostate cancer PC3 cells and LNCaP cells in vitro. Antiproliferative effects were detected with MTT assay. Cell cycle distribution and apoptosis were detected by flow cytometer. Protein expression was detected by Western blotting. The intracellular concentration of cisplatin was detected by high performance liquid chromatography. The results demonstrated that tanshinone II A significantly enhanced the antiproliferative effects of cisplatin on human prostate cancer PC3 cells and LNCaP cells with the increase of the intracellular concentration of cisplatin. These effects were correlated with cell cycle arrested at S phase and cell apoptosis. The apoptosis might be achieved through death receptor pathway and mitochondrial pathway. Furthermore, the Bcl-2 family members were also involved in this apoptotic process. Collectively, these results indicated that the combination of tanshinone II A and cisplatin had a better treatment effect in vitro not only on androgen-dependent LNCaP cells but also on androgen-independent PC3 cells.

This study is to investigate the antitumor activity of ophiopogonin B (OP-B). MTT assay, flow cytometric analysis, acridine orange staining, Lyso-Tracker Red staining and HeLa-GFP-LC3 transfect cells assay were used to detect the proliferation activity, apoptosis and autophagy of HeLa cells. The results showed that OP-B exerted potent antiproliferative activity on HeLa cells, the cell growth inhibition effect of OP-B was not due to apoptosis and OP-B could induce autophagy of HeLa cells. OP-B also induced the protein expression up-regulation of Beclin-1 and promoted LC3 I transformation LC3 II, which were representative proteins of autophagy. Furthermore, 3-MA, an inhibitor of autophagy, not only inhibited OP-B-mediated autophagy but also almost completely reversed the antiproliferative effect of OP-B, suggesting that the growth inhibition effect of OP-B was autophagy dependent. Western blotting demonstrated that OP-B inhibited the phosphorylation of Akt and its' downstream vital protein, such as mTOR and p70S6K. In addition, OP-B also induced the protein expression up-regulation of PTEN, which is a negative regulation protein for Akt/mTOR signaling pathway. However, OP-B did not affect the protein expression of total Akt. Collectively, the antitumor effects of OP-B were autophagy-dependent via repression Akt/mTOR signaling pathway. Therefore, OP-B is a prospective inhibitor of Akt/mTOR and may be used as an alternative compound to treat cervical carcinoma.

An efficient modified route based on the targeting mechanism of antibacterial fluoroquinolones for the shift from the antibacterial activity to the antitumor one was further developed. Using a fused heterocyclic ring, s-triazolothiadiazine as a carboxyl bioisostere of ciprofloxacin, the title compounds, 1-cyclopropyl-6-fluoro-7-piperazin-1-yl-3-(6-substituted-phenyl-7H-[1, 2, 4]triazolo[3, 4-b][1, 3, 4]thiadiazin-3-yl)-quinolin-4(1H)-ones (5a-5e) and their corresponding N-acetyl products (6a-6e), were designed and synthesized, separately. Meaningfully, a ring-contraction of fused six-membered thiadiazine occurred by a sulfur extrusion reaction gave new tri-acetylated fused heterocycles related to pyrazolo[5, 1-c][1, 2, 4] triazoles (7a-7e). The in vitro antitumor activity against L1210, CHO and HL60 cell lines was also evaluated for the synthesized fifteen heterocycles compared to parent ciprofloxacin by methylthiazole trazolium (MTT) assay. Interestingly, the results displayed that fifteen fused heterocyclic compounds showed more significant growth inhibitory activity (IC50 < 25.0 micromo x L(-1)) than that of parent ciprofloxacin (IC50 > 150.0 micromol x L(-1)), and the active order decreased from 7a-7e to 5a-5e to 6a-6e, respective.

This study is to examine the effects of NNIspm-mediated cellular senescence of HepG2 cells and elucidate its potential molecular mechanism. Cellular senescence was detected with senescence-associated beta-galactosidase staining. Cell cycle distribution, intracellular fluorescence intensity and accumulation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) were detected by high content screening (HCS). Protein expression was detected by Western blotting. Polyamines content was analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results demonstrated that NNIspm significantly induced HepG2 cells senescence. This effect was due to the decrease of intracellular polyamines, the arrest at G0/G1 phase and an increase of ROS level. The molecular senescence marker p21 increased significantly after NNIspm treatment. In contrast, the protein expressions of Cyclin E and CDK2 were obvious down-regulation. The results indicated that cellular senescence induced by NNIspm was one of its antitumor mechanisms.

The objective of this study is to examine the effects of ANISpm, a novel polyamine naphthalimide conjugate, with acetylsalicylic acid against hepatocellular carcinoma in vivo and in vitro and elucidate its potential molecular mechanism. The proliferation inhibition was detected by MTT assay. Cell apoptosis, intracellular fluorescence intensity and mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) were detected by high content screening (HCS) analysis. Polyamines content was analyzed by reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography Protein expression levels were quantified by Western blotting assay. The combination treatment strongly inhibited cell proliferation, induced cell apoptosis in HepG2 cells and H22 hepatoma cells, which was mediated by enhanced ANISpm uptake via up-regulation of spermidine/spermine N1-acetyltransferase (SSAT) and depression of intracellular polyamine. Furthermore, this synergistic apoptosis was involved in mitochondria and death-receptor signal pathway. All these findings demonstrated that the combination treatment with acetylsalicylic acid and ANISpm resulted in synergistic antitumor effects on hepatoma cells. Thus, combination therapy with these agents may be useful as a potential template for the development of better chemotherapeutic strategy against hepatoma.

This paper is to report the study of resveratrol-induced apoptosis and its mechanisms in MCF-7 cells. MTT assay was performed to assess the cytotoxicity of resveratrol on MCF-7 cells. Hoechst 33258 staining was used to observe cellular morphologic changes in apoptosis. Apoptosis was measured by flow cytometric analysis and the protein expression was examined by Western blotting analysis. The results indicated that resveratrol could inhibit MCF-7 cell growth in a time- and concentration-dependent manner. Remarkable morphologic changes in the cells after 60 micromol L(-1) resveratrol treatment, including cell nuclear shrinkage, DNA condensation and apoptotic bodies, were observed by Hoechst 33258 staining. Resveratrol could induce apoptosis and activate p38 and p53 in a time dependent manner in MCF-7 cells. In addition, the cell growth inhibitory ratio and the apoptotic ratio of resveratrol-treated group decreased markedly by the p38 MAPK inhibitor SB203580 or p53 inhibitor pifithrin-alpha. Further experiments confirmed that resveratrol-induced p53 activation was reduced by SB203580 whereas the activation of p38 was not affected by pifithrin-alpha. In conclusion, resveratrol induced apoptosis in MCF-7 cells could be through activating p38-p53 signal pathway.

OBJECTIVETo study the antiproliferative effects of beta-sitosterul and its mechanism in hepatoma HepG2 cells.

METHODCell proliferation was assessed by MTT assay. Cell cycle distribution, apoptosis and mitochondrial membrane potential were measured by high content screening (HCS). The protein expression of caspase-3, caspase-8, caspase-9, Bcl-2, Bax, tBid and cytochrome c in the HepG2 cells were evaluated by Western Blots.

RESULTbeta-Sitosterul exerted significant antiproliferative effects in HepG2 cells. Furthermore, beta-sitosterul also induced HepG2 cells apoptosis, lost mitochondrial membrane potential, activated caspase-3, caspase-8 and caspase-9, up-regulate Bax, tBid protein, down-regulation Bcl-2 protein. However, beta-sitosterul had hardly any effects on QSG7701 cells.

CONCLUSIONbeta-Sitosterul exerted antiproliferative effects and induced HepG2 cells apoptosis via mitochondrial pathway and membrane death receptor pathway.

Antineoplastic Agents ; pharmacology ; Apoptosis ; drug effects ; Apoptosis Regulatory Proteins ; metabolism ; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular ; metabolism ; pathology ; Cell Cycle ; drug effects ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Cell Proliferation ; drug effects ; Hep G2 Cells ; Humans ; Liver Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; Membrane Potential, Mitochondrial ; drug effects ; Sitosterols ; pharmacology