Publications by authors named "Paola De Cicco"

Background And Aims: Intestinal fibrosis, a frequent complication of inflammatory bowel disease, is characterized by stricture formation with no pharmacological treatment to date. N-acylethanolamine acid amidase (NAAA) is responsible of acylethanolamides (AEs, e.g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Hyperlipidaemia, a condition linked to heart disease, was studied using spirulina in adult Wistar rats subjected to a high-fat diet to assess its preventive and curative effects.
  • The research measured various blood lipid levels and analyzed chemical composition in feces before and after spirulina treatment, finding significant changes in cholesterol and bile acid levels.
  • Results indicated that spirulina resulted in reduced LDL and total cholesterol, showing more effectiveness when given as a preventive measure prior to hyperlipidaemia onset, possibly due to increased bile acid excretion and changes in gut microbiota.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignant tumours worldwide. Diarylheptanoids, secondary metabolites isolated from Zostera marina, are of interest in natural products research due to their biological activities. Zosterabisphenone B (ZBP B) has recently been shown to inhibit the viability of CRC cells.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Parkinson's Disease (PD), a neurodegenerative disorder, is characterized by the degeneration of progressive dopaminergic (DA) neurons in the substantia nigra region of the human midbrain. Although just what causes PD remains a mystery, it is known that oxidative stress (OS) as well as mitochondrial dysfunction, neuro-inflammation, and insufficient neurotrophic support play a role in the disease's pathophysiology. Phytochemicals are a diverse small molecule group derived from plants that can be classified into numerous classes on the basis of their biological activities and chemical structure.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Chamomile (M. chamomilla L.) is an herbaceous plant from family Astereaceae, that has a long history of use in traditional medicine.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Analysis of extracts of the marine sponge by high-resolution LC-MS and molecular networking resulted in the discovery of a new family of potentially UV-protecting phospholipids, the favilipids. One of them, favilipid A (), was isolated and its structure determined by mass and tandem mass spectrometry, NMR, electronic circular dichroism (ECD), and computational studies. Favilipid A, which has no close analogues among natural products, possesses an unprecedented structure characterized by a 4-aminodihydropiridinium core, resulting in UV-absorbing properties that are very unusual for a phospholipid.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The widespread seagrass contains a new diarylheptanoid heterodimer, zosterabisphenone C (), featuring an unprecedented rearrangement of one of its benzene rings to a cyclopentenecarbonyl unit. The planar structure and absolute configuration of zosterabisphenone C were elucidated by a combination of spectroscopic (MS, ECD, and low-temperature NMR) and computational (DFT-NMR and DFT-ECD) evidence. Consistent with the previously isolated zosterabisphenones, compound was selectively cytotoxic against HCT 116 adenocarcinoma colon cancer cells, reducing their viability by 73% at 10 μM (IC of 7.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Olive tree leaves are an abundant source of bioactive compounds with several beneficial effects for human health, including a protective role against many types of cancer. In this study, we investigated the effect of an extract, obtained from olive tree (Olea europaea L.) leaves (OLE), on proliferation, invasion, and epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) on metastatic melanoma, the highly aggressive form of skin cancer and the deadliest diseases.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Purpose: Transient receptor potential melastatin type-8 (TRPM8) is a cold-sensitive cation channel protein belonging to the TRP superfamily of ion channels. Here, we reveal the molecular mechanism of TRPM8 and its clinical relevance in colorectal cancer (CRC).

Experimental Approach: TRPM8 expression and its correlation with the survival rate of CRC patients was analysed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Fibromyalgia (FM) is an idiopathic disorder characterized by generalized pain and associated symptoms such as depression and anxiety. Cannabis sativa shows different pharmacological activities, such as analgesic, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective, and immunomodulatory. Associated with this, the use of an oil with low concentrations of THC can reduce the psychomimetic adverse effects of the plant.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Recent pharmacological research on milk whey, a byproduct of the dairy industry, has identified several therapeutic properties that could be exploited in modern medicine. In the present study, we investigated the anticancer effects of whey from Mediterranean buffalo () milk. The antitumour effect of delactosed milk whey (DMW) was evaluated using the HCT116 xenograft mouse model of colorectal cancer (CRC).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Olive tree ( L.) leaves are an abundant source of bioactive compounds with several beneficial effects for human health. Recently, the effect of olive leaf extract in obesity has been studied.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Malignant melanoma is the deadliest skin cancer, due to its propensity to metastasize. MAPKs and NF-κB pathways are constitutively activated in melanoma and promote cell proliferation, cell invasion, metastasis formation, and resistance to therapeutic regimens. Thus, they represent potential targets for melanoma prevention and treatment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Suppression of antitumor immune responses is one of the main mechanisms by which tumor cells escape from destruction by the immune system. Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) represent the main immunosuppressive cells present in the tumor microenvironment (TME) that sustain cancer progression. MDSCs are a heterogeneous group of immature myeloid cells with a potent activity against T-cell.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

CRISPR/Cas9 has become a powerful method to engineer genomes and to activate or to repress genes expression. As such, in cancer research CRISPR/Cas9 technology represents an efficient tool to dissect mechanisms of tumorigenesis and to discover novel targets for drug development. Here, we employed the CRISPR/Cas9 technology for studying the role of prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 2 (PTGS2) in melanoma development and progression.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Purpose: Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) represent a major obstacle to cancer treatment, as they negatively regulate anti-tumour immunity through the suppression of tumour-specific T lymphocytes. Thus, the efficacy of immunotherapies may be improved by targeting MDSCs. In this study, we assessed the ability of hydrogen sulfide (H S), a gasotransmitter whose anti-cancer effects are well known, to inhibit the accumulation and immunosuppressive functions of MDSCs in melanoma.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Breast cancer (BC) is the second most common cancer worldwide and the most commonly occurring malignancy in women. There is growing evidence that lifestyle factors, including diet, body weight and physical activity, may be associated with higher BC risk. However, the effect of dietary factors on BC recurrence and mortality is not clearly understood.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The beneficial effects of HS-release and of COXs-inhibition have been exploited in the design of novel anti-inflammatory drugs, the HS-releasing non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (HS-NSAIDs), showing promising potential for chemoprevention in cancers. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of a new HS-releasing derivative of naproxen, named naproxen-4-hydroxybenzodithioate (naproxen-HBTA), in reducing metastatic melanoma features, both and . The novel HS donor has been prepared following a synthetic scheme that provided high yields and purity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Natural compounds derived from marine organisms exhibit a wide variety of biological activities. Over the last decades, a great interest has been focused on the anti-tumour role of sponges and algae that constitute the major source of these bioactive metabolites. A substantial number of chemically different structures from different species have demonstrated inhibition of tumour growth and progression by inducing apoptosis in several types of human cancer.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: A strong, reciprocal crosstalk between inflammation and melanoma has rigorously been demonstrated in recent years, showing how crucial is a pro-inflammatory microenvironment to drive therapy resistance and metastasis.

Purpose: We investigated on the effects of Indicaxanthin, a novel, anti-inflammatory and bioavailable phytochemical from Opuntia Ficus Indica fruits, against human melanoma both in vitro and in vivo.

Study Design And Methods: The effects of indicaxanthin were evaluated against the proliferation of A375 human melanoma cell line and in a mice model of cutaneous melanoma.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Malignant melanoma is one of the most leading form of skin cancer associated with a low patient survival rate. Increasing evidence revealed that microRNAs (miRNAs) play a crucial role in the occurrence and development of several form of cancer including melanoma. In this study, we aimed at investigating the expression and role of miR-143-3p in human malignant melanoma.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Chronic inflammation contributes to tumor initiation in colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CRC). Indeed, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients show an increased risk of developing CRC. Cancer immune evasion is a major issue in CRC and preclinical and clinical evidence has defined a critical role for myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) that contribute to tumor growth and progression by suppressing T-cells and modulating innate immune responses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Vitis vinifera cv Falanghina is an ancient grape variety of Southern Italy. A thorough phytochemical analysis of the Falanghina leaves was conducted to investigate its specialised metabolite content. Along with already known molecules, such as caftaric acid, quercetin-3-O-β-d-glucopyranoside, quercetin-3-O-β-d-glucuronide, kaempferol-3-O-β-d-glucopyranoside and kaempferol-3-O-β-d-glucuronide, a previously undescribed biflavonoid was identified.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Melanoma is the most common form of skin cancer. Given its high mortality, the interest in the search of preventive measures, such as dietary factors, is growing significantly. In this study we tested, and , the potential anti-cancer effect of the acetyl deacylasadisulfide (ADA), a vinyl disulfide compound, isolated and purified from asafoetida a foul-smelling oleo gum-resin of dietary and medicinal relevance.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Inflammation plays a key role in tumor promotion and development. Indeed, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression is strongly associated with different types of cancer. An emerging class of compounds with significant anti-inflammatory properties is the hydrogen sulfide-releasing non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (HS-NSAIDs).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF