Publications by authors named "Long G Wang"

Since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the treatments and management of the deadly COVID-19 disease have made great progress. The strategies for developing novel treatments against COVID-19 include antiviral small molecule drugs, cell and gene therapies, immunomodulators, neutralizing antibodies, and combination therapies. Among them, immunomodulators are the most studied treatments.

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A small molecule, Natura-α, a clinical stage investigational new drug for certain inflammatory diseases, has been evaluated for drug interaction with STAT3 and inhibiting systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Studies have revealed that it selectively inhibits STAT3-Y705 phosphorylation and, suppresses pro-inflammatory cytokines, stimulates anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10, thereby skewing T cell differentiation from the Th1/Th17 lineages toward the Treg lineage. The potential binding of the drug to STAT3 protein has been investigated with a computational modeling and docking simulation using X-ray crystal structure of the STAT3β homodimer.

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Purpose: The development of new effective therapeutic agents with minimal side effects for prostate cancer (PC) treatment is much needed. Indirubin, an active molecule identified in the traditional Chinese herbal medicine-Qing Dai (Indigo naturalis), has been used to treat leukemia for decades. However, the anticancer properties of Natura-alpha, an indirubin derivative, are not well studied in solid tumors, particularly in PC.

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Prostate cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in men. The number of affected men is expected to rapidly increase as the population of males over the age of 50 grows worldwide. For patients who are not cured by local treatment and experience metastatic disease, neither androgen ablation nor chemotherapy can abrogate progression and death from androgen-independent/hormone-refractory disease.

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Cytokines and CD4(+) Th cells play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis. Among the Th populations, Th-1 and Th-17 have been described as pathogenic in collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) whereas Th-2 and Treg were found to have protective effects. The objective of this study was to examine the affect of Natura-alpha, a newly developed cytokine regulator, on CIA and on Th cell development.

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Unlabelled: Multiple lines of evidence implicate over-expression and activation of the androgen receptor (AR) in the progression of prostate cancer (PC) to androgen-independence (AI) and resistance to therapy. The mechanisms leading to AR over-expression are not fully understood but binding of Sp1 to specific Sp1-binding sites in the AR promoter and 5'-untranslated region (5'-UTR) was shown to up-regulate AR transcription. In this work, we further characterized the role of Sp1 in the control of AR transcription and explored its potential as a therapeutic target in androgen-dependent (AD) and independent (AI) LNCaP cells.

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Background: The word selectivity describes a drug's ability to affect a particular cell population in preference to others. As part of the current state of art in the search for new therapeutic agents, the property of selectivity is a mode of action thought to have a high degree of desirability. Consequently there is a growing activity in this area of research.

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Androgen receptor (AR) overexpression is one of the characteristics of prostate cancer (PC) that progresses to hormone independence. An androgen-independent (AI) derivative, with much higher AR-mRNA and protein levels than the parental LNCaP cell line, whose proliferation was androgen dependent (AD), was used to explore the mechanism of AR overexpression. We found that a suppressor element (ARS), previously identified in mouse AR and located in the 5'-untranslated region of human AR gene, malfunctions in AI cells.

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Although many prostate cancer cases relapse to a hormone-insensitive state, endocrine therapy involving androgen depletion by orchiectomy or by treatment with LHRH-analogue as well as blockade of the androgen receptor (AR) with anti-androgens remains a primary treatment option. Quality of life (QOL) however, is a prime consideration of men choosing such an approach. In this report we discuss a synergistic combination of 150-mg bicaltumide (Casodex) and 5 mg finasteride (Proscar) in the treatment of a 69-year-old patient with a relapsed (biochemical failure) Gleason score 7 prostate cancer, initially treated with external beam radiation therapy.

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