Study on alantolactone-induced differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells into vascular cells

Journal Title: Traditional Medicine Research - Year 2018, Vol 3, Issue 4

Abstract

To promote efficient screening of active angiogenic drugs from traditional medicines, we constructed a human embryonic kidney-293 cell model using vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene promoter as the drug target. In this model, VEGF gene promoter may regulate the expression of the luciferase reporter gene by responding to the stimulation of drug molecules. This cell model allows rapid and efficient screening of vascular-inducing active components from several drug monomer molecules. Furthermore, we used rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (rMSCs) to conduct a preliminary study on the activity of alantolactone. Using simvastatin as a positive control, we investigated the effects of alantolactone on the expression of vascular-related cell marker molecules such as VEGF and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) in rMSCs. According to our results, 0.1, 1, 3 and 5 μM of alantolactone upregulated the transcriptional luciferase gene activity of VEGF promoter, and a significant difference from that in the control group was observed. Among them, 3μM of alantolactone showed the better effect than that of 3 μM of simvastatin (P = 0.036) and other concentrations of alantolactone and simvastatin showed similar effects. Compared with that in the control group, rMSCs induced with 1μM alantolactone for 3 days showed a significant increase in the relative mRNA expressions of VEGF and α-SMA genes. However, these effect of 5 μM alantolactone were weaker than those of 5 μM simvastatin (P < 0.05); rMSCs treated with 1 μM alantolactone for 3 days showed brighter green fluorescence (FITC marker) of α-SMA and VEGF in situ expression than that observed in the control group and similar fluorescence intensity than that of simvastatin group in an immunoradiometric assay. The above results demonstrate the reliability of the highly efficient system for screening of active drug molecules and confirmed the vascular induction function of alantolactone at the gene and protein levels.

Authors and Affiliations

Yan-Jiao Lu, Qiong Lu, Ruo-Ke Su, Gang Wang, Rui Tan

Keywords

Related Articles

Fireneedle up-regulates the expression of ERK1/2 in neural stem cells

Objective: To explore the effect of fire needle on the expression of ERK1/2 of neural stem cells (NSCs) obtained from rats with spinal cord injury (SCI). Methods: Sixty SD female rats were randomly divided into 5 groups,...

A systematical review of traditional Ayurvedic and morden medical perspectives on Ghrita (clarified butter): a boon or bane

Highlights Ghrita (clarified butter), treated as the culprit of a number of diseases, has been depicted incorrectly for a long time. This review presents the complete picture in view of Ayurvedic perspective and recen...

Pharmacological research progress of ursolic acid for the treatment of liver diseases

Ursolic acid is a natural pentacyclic triterpenoid with various pharmacological activities such as anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, antitumor, and hypoglycemic activity. This natural product is widely present in many...

Is naturopathic medicine necessarily safe?

Recently, an article by a Danish doctor, titled “Chinese herbal remedy found to contain steroids and antifungals” was published in the journal Lancet [1]. He described a patient with early-onset guttate psoriasis who had...

Chlorogenic acid may be a potent inhibitor of dimeric SARS-CoV-2 main protease 3CLpro: an in silico study

Background: Since the emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 to date, there is no available approved drug or definitive treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 viral infection, and the identification of novel hits against...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP45226
  • DOI 10.12032/TMR201812077
  • Views 279
  • Downloads 0

How To Cite

Yan-Jiao Lu, Qiong Lu, Ruo-Ke Su, Gang Wang, Rui Tan (2018). Study on alantolactone-induced differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells into vascular cells. Traditional Medicine Research, 3(4), -. https://www.europub.co.uk/articles/-A-45226