Comprehensive review of opportunities and challenges of ethnomedicinal plants for managing type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes mellitus is a prevalent metabolic disorder worldwide. A variety of antidiabetic medications have been developed to help manage blood glucose levels in diabetic patients, but adverse reactions and efficacy loss over time have spurred research into new therapeutic agents. In view of this, investigations into the antidiabetic effect of herbal products have been encouraged due to their potential availability, inexpensiveness, and relatively minimal side effects.

Novel detoxifier of spironolactone against triptolide-induced hepatotoxicity through inhibition of RPB1 degradation.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Triptolide is a major bioactive and toxic ingredient isolated from the traditional Chinese herb Tripterygium wilfordii (T. wilfordii) Hook F. It exhibits potent antitumor, immunosuppressive, and anti-inflammatory biological activities; however, its clinical application is hindered by severe systemic toxicity.

Precision-engineered PEGylated liposome for dual payload delivery: enhancing efficacy of Doxorubicin hydrochloride and miR-145 mimics in breast cancer cells.

Micro-145 down-regulation is frequently found in breast cancers, indicating its potential as a therapeutic target. The introduction of exogenous miR-145 directly to the tumor sites has been a hurdle due to limited delivery, low bioavailability, and hence lower therapeutic efficacy. Thus, this study aims to synthesize and characterize PEGylated liposome co-loaded with Dox-HCl and miR-145 mimics to investigate its anti-proliferative activity against MDA-MB-231 cells.

Short Fragmented Peptides from Exhibit Stronger Anticancer Activities in Residue Replacement and Analyses.

Background: Cancer is a worldwide issue. It has been observed that conventional therapies face many problems, such as side effects and drug resistance. Recent research reportedly used marine-derived products to treat various diseases and explored their potential in treating cancers.

Association of microRNA-21 expression with breast cancer subtypes and its potential as an early biomarker.

Breast cancer has become the most diagnosed cancer worldwide in 2020 with high morbidity and mortality rates. The alarming increase in breast cancer incidence has sprung many researchers to focus on developing novel screening tests to identify early breast cancer which will allow clinicians to provide timely and effective treatments. With much evidence supporting the notion that the deregulation of miRNAs (a class of non-coding RNA) greatly contributes to cancer initiation and progression, the promising role of miRNAs as cancer biomarkers is gaining traction in the research world.

Chemotherapy: how to reduce its adverse effects while maintaining the potency?

Chemotherapy is one of the widely used anticancer treatments that involves the use of powerful cytotoxic drugs to stop tumor growth by targeting rapidly dividing cells through various mechanisms, which will be elucidated in this review. Introduced during the early twentieth century, chemotherapy has since lengthened the longevity of innumerable cancer patients. However, the increase in lifespan is at the expense of quality of life as patients are at risk of developing short-term and long-term side effects following chemotherapy, such as alopecia (hair loss), chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, cardiotoxicity, diarrhea, infertility, and chemo brain.

Association of CYP24A1 with survival and drug resistance in clinical cancer patients: a meta-analysis.

Background: Acquired chemo-drug resistance constantly led to the failure of chemotherapy for malignant cancers, consequently causing cancer relapse. Hence, identifying the biomarker of drug resistance is vital to improve the treatment efficacy in cancer. The clinical prognostic value of CYP24A1 remains inconclusive, hence we aim to evaluate the association between CYP24A1 and the drug resistance in cancer patients through a meta-analysis approach.

Therapeutic Targeting of Overexpressed MiRNAs in Cancer Progression.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNAs involved in the modulation of various biological processes, and their dysregulation is greatly associated with cancer progression as miRNAs can act as either tumour suppressors or oncogenes, depending on their intended target, mechanism of actions, and expression levels. This review paper aims to shed light on the role of overexpressed miRNAs in cancer progression. Cancer cells are known to upregulate specific miRNAs to inhibit the expression of genes regulating the cell cycle, such as PTEN, FOXO1, SOX7, caspases, KLF4, TRIM8, and ZBTB4.

The Potential of Plant-Derived Extracts and Compounds to Augment Anticancer Effects of Chemotherapeutic Drugs.

Plant extracts comprise a complex mixture of natural compounds with diverse biological activities including anticancer activities. This has made the use of plant extracts a trending strategy in cancer treatment. In addition, plants' active constituents such as polyphenols could confer protective effects on normal cells against damage by free radicals as well as lessen the toxicity of chemotherapeutic drugs.

Epiregulin increases stemness-associated genes expression and promotes chemoresistance of non-small cell lung cancer via ERK signaling.

Background: Chemoresistance often causes the failure of treatment and death of patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. However, there is still no resistance genes signature and available enriched signaling derived from a comprehensive RNA-Seq data analysis of lung cancer patients that could act as a therapeutic target to re-sensitize the acquired resistant cancer cells to chemo-drugs. Hence, in this study, we aimed to identify the resistance signature for clinical lung cancer patients and explore the regulatory mechanism.

Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Derived Exosomes and MicroRNAs in Cartilage Regeneration: Biogenesis, Efficacy, miRNA Enrichment and Delivery.

Exosomes are the small extracellular vesicles secreted by cells for intercellular communication. Exosomes are rich in therapeutic cargos such as microRNA (miRNA), long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), small interfering RNA (siRNA), DNA, protein, and lipids. Recently, many studies have focused on miRNAs as a promising therapeutic factor to support cartilage regeneration.

Ternary Copper (II) Complex Induced Apoptosis and Cell Cycle Arrest in Colorectal Cancer Cells.

Background: The lack of specificity, severe side effects, and development of drug resistance have largely limited the use of platinum-based compounds in cancer treatment. Therefore, copper complexes have emerged as potential alternatives to platinum-based compounds.

Objective: Ternary copper (II) complex incorporated with 1-10-phenanthroline and L-tyrosine was investigated for its anti-cancer effects in HT-29 colorectal cancer cells.

Association of SMAD4 loss with drug resistance in clinical cancer patients: A systematic meta-analysis.

Background: Drug resistance frequently led to the failure of chemotherapy for malignant cancers, hence causing cancer relapse. Thus, understanding mechanism of drug resistance in cancer is vital to improve the treatment efficacy. Here, we aim to evaluate the association between SMAD4 expression and the drug resistance in cancers by performing a meta-analysis.

5-Azacytidine pretreatment confers transient upregulation of proliferation and stemness in human mesenchymal stem cells.

Successful outcomes of cell-based therapeutic is highly-dependent on quality and quantity of the cells. Epigenetic modifiers are known to modulate cell fates via reprogramming, hence it is plausible to use them in enhancing the plasticity of mesenchymal stem cells. In this study, we aimed to study the effects of 5-Azacytidine (5-AzaCR), an epigenetic modifier, pretreatment on mesenchymal stem cells-derived from Wharton's Jelly (WJMSCs) fates.

The Potential of Mesenchymal Stromal Cell as Therapy in Neonatal Diseases.

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) can be derived from various tissue sources, such as the bone marrow (BMSCs), adipose tissue (ADSCs), umbilical cord (UC-MSCs) and umbilical cord blood (UCB-MSCs). Clinical trials have been conducted to investigate the potential of MSCs in ameliorating neonatal diseases, including bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). In preclinical studies, MSC therapy has been tested for the treatment of various neonatal diseases affecting the heart, eye, gut, and brain as well as sepsis.

Comparison of Isolation, Expansion and Cryopreservation Techniques to Produce Stem Cells from Human Exfoliated Deciduous Teeth (SHED) with Better Regenerative Potential.

Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) are adult stem cells that are gaining worldwide attention for their multi-potential use in tissue engineering-based regenerative medicine. They can be obtained from numerous sources and one of the excellent sources is the dental tissue, such as Stem cells that are extracted from the Human Exfoliated Deciduous teeth (SHED). SHED are considered ideal due to their inherent characteristics, including the capability to proliferate quickly with minimal oncogenesis risk, multipotency capacity and their ability to suppress the immune system.

Regulatory Role of Quiescence in the Biological Function of Cancer Stem Cells.

Quiescence in cancer cells is considered a therapeutic challenge as it confers dormancy in tumour, hence circumventing inherent anti-neoplastic surveillance system and standard-of-care cancer therapeutics including chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Since majority of the therapeutics target actively proliferating cancer cells, cancer cells eventually develop quiescent nature as mechanism of survival and cancer progression under both niche and therapeutic pressures. Quiescence state in cancer cells, eventually, confers resistant and aggressive nature to conventional cancer therapies, resulting in disease progression and relapse.

Establishing metastatic patient-derived xenograft model for colorectal cancer.

Background: Patient-derived xenograft model is a powerful and promising tool for drug discovery and cancer biology studies. The application of previous metastatic colorectal cancer models has been greatly limited by its low success rate and long time to develop metastasis. Therefore, in this study, we aim to describe an optimized protocol for faster establishment of colorectal cancer metastatic patient-derived xenograft mouse models.

The Potential Use of Anticancer Peptides (ACPs) in the Treatment of Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Peptides have acquired increasing interest as promising therapeutics, particularly as anticancer alternatives during recent years. They have been reported to demonstrate incredible anticancer potentials due to their low manufacturing cost, ease of synthesis and great specificity and selectivity. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is among the leading cause of cancer death globally, and the effectiveness of current liver treatment has turned out to be a critical issue in treating the disease efficiently.

Loss of Transfected Human Brain Micro-Vascular Endothelial Cell Integrity during Herpes Simplex Virus Infection.

Objective: Herpes simplex virus infection through the neuronal route is the most well-studied mode of viral encephalitis that can persists in a human host for a lifetime. However, the involvement of other possible infection mechanisms by the virus remains underexplored. Therefore, this study aims to determine the temporal effects and mechanisms by which the virus breaches the human brain micro-vascular endothelial cells of the blood-brain barrier.

Suppression of ERK1/2 and hypoxia pathways by four Phyllanthus species inhibits metastasis of human breast cancer cells.

Chemotherapies remain far from ideal due to drug resistance; therefore, novel chemotherapeutic agents with higher effectiveness are crucial. The extracts of four Phyllanthus species, namely Phyllanthus niruri, Phyllanthus urinaria, Phyllanthus watsonii, and Phyllanthus amarus, were shown to induce apoptosis and inhibit metastasis of breast carcinoma cells (MCF-7). The main objective of this study was to determine the pathways utilized by these four Phyllanthus species to exert anti-metastatic activities.

NOTCH1 Signaling Regulates Self-Renewal and Platinum Chemoresistance of Cancer Stem-like Cells in Human Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

Cancer stem-like cells (CSC) are thought to drive tumor initiation, metastasis, relapse, and therapeutic resistance, but their specific pathogenic characters in many cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), have yet to be well defined. Here, we develop findings that the growth factor HGF promotes CSC sphere formation in NSCLC cell populations. In patient-derived sphere-forming assays (PD-SFA) with HGF, CD49f and CD104 were defined as novel markers of lung CSC (LCSC).