<p><em>Camellia nitidissima</em> Chi Extract Potentiates the Sensitivity of Gastric Cancer Cells to Paclitaxel via the Induction of Autophagy and Apoptosis</p>

Abstract

Background: Camellia nitidissima Chi (CNC) has been applied as a traditional folk medicine for the effective treatment of various diseases. However, there is little research regarding the mechanism of CNC on pharmaceutical function including anticancer effect. Materials and methods: JHC-4 is a n-butanol extract from CNC. The anti-proliferation effect was evaluated by MTT assays. Monodansylcadaverine (MDC) staining, Western blotting and autophagy inhibitors (CQ and BafA1) were applied to determine whether JHC-4 induced autophagy. The synergistic anticancer effect was evaluated by MTT assays, flow cytometry, Western blotting and autophagy inhibitors. Western blotting was used to explore the influence of PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway induced by drug treatment. Results: JHC-4 caused significant growth inhibition and induced autophagy in human gastric cancer cells. Moreover, JHC-4 as an autophagy agonist synergistically potentiated the sensitivity of gastric cancer cells to paclitaxel. Meanwhile, JHC-4 could significantly enhance the growth inhibition effect of paclitaxel by the induction of autophagy and apoptosis. Finally, we demonstrated that the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway was involved in the synergistic anti-proliferation effect of JHC-4 and paclitaxel. Conclusion: All these data indicated that JHC-4 was a novel autophagy inducer when combination with paclitaxel for gastric cancer, which provided the scientific evidence for the use of this Chinese traditional medicine against cancer.

Active fractions of golden-flowered tea (Camellia nitidissima Chi) inhibit epidermal growth factor receptor mutated non-small cell lung cancer via multiple pathways and targets in vitro and in vivo

“…As a plant with both medicinal and ornamental value, the pharmacological effects of its flower fractions have been thoroughly studied ( 34 , 36 , 37 ), while the research on leave fractions was rare. Furthermore, few studies have systematically investigated the differences in the chemical composition of the four active fractions of CNC.…”

Proteome Analysis of Camellia nitidissima Chi Revealed Its Role in Colon Cancer Through the Apoptosis and Ferroptosis Pathway

“…CNC is a TCM with a medicinal history of more than 2000 years. Modern pharmacological studies have suggested that CNC has a wide range of anti-tumor properties ( 26 , 27 ), in liver cancer, lung cancer, esophageal cancer, and others. Here we studied the anti-colon cancer efficacy of CNC in vivo and in vitro to explore potential mechanisms underlying these effects.…”

Inhibition of autophagy by CRMP2-derived peptide ST2-104 (R9-CBD3) via a CaMKKβ/AMPK/mTOR pathway contributes to ischemic postconditioning-induced neuroprotection against cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury

“…Autophagic morphological changes were evaluated by fluorescence microscopy using monodansylcadaverine (MDC) staining. MDC is a specific marker for autophagosome formation [ 34 ]. After the indicated treatments, cells were rinsed with PBS for 3 times and incubated in 200 µl of 0.05 mM MDC (Solarbio, Beijing, China) at 37 °C for 30 min.…”