Bioactive chemical constitutes from the root of Salvia miltiorrhiza classified in two major groups, viz., liposoluble tanshinones and water-soluble phenolics. Tanshinone IIA is a major lipid-soluble compound having promising health benefits. The in vivo and in vitro studies showed that the tanshinone IIA and salvianolate have a wide range of cardiovascular and other pharmacological effects, including antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, endothelial protective, myocardial protective, anticoagulation, vasodilation, and anti-atherosclerosis, as well as significantly help to reduce proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells. In addition, some of the clinical studies reported that the S. miltiorrhiza preparations in combination with Western medicine were more effective for treatment of various cardiovascular diseases including angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and pulmonary heart diseases. In this review, we demonstrated the potential applications of S. miltiorrhiza , including pharmacological effects of salvianolate, tanshinone IIA, and its water-soluble derivative, like sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate. Moreover, we also provided details about the clinical applications of S. miltiorrhiza preparations in controlling the cardiovascular diseases.

Cancer is a common malignant disease worldwide with an increasing mortality in recent years. Salvia miltiorrhiza, a well-known traditional Chinese medicine, has been used for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases for thousands of years. The liposoluble tanshinones in S. miltiorrhiza are important bioactive components and mainly include tanshinone IIA, dihydrodanshinone, tanshinone I, and cryptotanshinone. Previous studies showed that these four tanshinones exhibited distinct inhibitory effects on tumor cells through different molecular mechanisms in vitro and in vivo. The mechanisms mainly include the inhibition of tumor cell growth, metastasis, invasion, and angiogenesis, apoptosis induction, cell autophagy, and antitumor immunity, and so on. In this review, we describe the latest progress on the antitumor functions and mechanisms of these four tanshinones to provide a deeper understanding of the efficacy. In addition, the important role of tumor immunology is also reviewed.

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Polylactic acid (PLA) surgical suture can be absorbed by human body. In order to avoid surgical site infections (SSIs), the drug is usually loaded on the PLA suture, and then the drug can release directly to the wound. Because the different types of wounds heal at different times, it is needed to control the drug release rate of PLA suture to consistent to the wound healing time. Two biopolymers, polyglycolide (PGA) and polycaprolactone (PCL), were selected as the carrier of ciprofloxacin (CPFX) drug, and then the CPFX-PCL/PGA was coated on the PLA suture. The degradation rate of drug-carrier can be controlled by adjusting the proportion of PCL/PGA, which can regulate the rate of CPFX drug release from PLA suture. The results show that the surface of PLA suture, coating with PCL/PGA, was very rough, which led to increased stitching resistance when we were suturing the wound. These materials, such as the PLA suture, the PCL/PGA carriers and the CPFX drug, were just physically mixed rather than chemically reacted, which was very useful for ensuring the original efficacy of CPFX drug. With the increasing of PCL in the carriers, both the breaking strength and elongation of these un-degraded sutures increased. During degradation, the breaking strength of all sutures gradually decreased, and the more PCL in the coating materials, the longer effective strength-time for the suture. With the increasing of PCL in the drug-carrier, the rate of drug releasing became lower. The drug release mechanism of CPFX-PCL/PGA was a synergistic effect of drug diffusion and PCL/PGA carrier dissolution.

Abstract. The Notch pathway displays several functions related to tumor progression. Breast carcinomas commonly express Notch1, Notch2, Notch3 and Notch4 at variable levels and these are mainly involved in differentiation, proliferation and survival. Notch1 can also induce the invasion of breast cancer cells. However, the precise role and mechanism of Notch1 in tumor invasion remains unclear. In this report, we used small interference RNA technology to knock down the expression of Notch1, resulting in reduced migration and invasion of breast cancer cells. Meanwhile, F-actin polymerization, which is essential for cellular generation of the forces needed for motility, was also impaired in Notch1 knockdown cells. We further investigated the expression of extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer (EMMPRIN), matrix metalloproteases-2 (MMP-2) and MMP-9, and found that the expression of functional EMMPRIN and MMP-2 was significantly decreased in Notch1 knockdown cells, while the expression of MMP-9 was constant. Additionally, the silencing of Notch1 expression likewise impaired cell-to-matrix and cell-to-cell adhesion. Western blotting results showed that reduction of Notch1 levels impacted the phosphorylation of PAK, phosphorylation of Akt, phosphorylation of FAK, the phosphorylation of integrin β1, ICAM-1 and β-catenin. Collectively, these findings suggest that targeting Notch1 has important therapeutic value in breast cancer.