青蒿素和青蒿琥酯对人乳腺癌MCF-7细胞的体外抑制作用比较研究

目的 对比研究青蒿素及其衍生物青蒿琥酯对人乳腺癌MCF—7细胞增殖的影响并探讨其作用机制。方法 采用体外培养的人乳腺癌MCF—7细胞株，利用SRB法测定青蒿素和青蒿琥酯对MCF—7细胞增殖的影响，FCM法测定细胞周期的变化，亚Gl期含量测定和DAN荧光染色法观察细胞凋亡。结果 10μmol/L青蒿素和lμmol/L青蒿琥酯能明显改变MCF—7细胞的细胞周期，使S期细胞显著减少，G0 Gl期细胞明显增加。青蒿素对MCF—7细胞增殖仅有微弱抑制作用，但其衍生物青蒿琥iB却有显著的抑制作用，IC50为0．3lμmol/L。同样，lμmol/L青蒿琥酷引起MCF—7细胞的凋亡和直接的细胞毒作用明显强于10μmol/L青蒿素的作用。结论 体外研究表明，对肿瘤细胞增殖的抑制青蒿琥酯比青蒿素作用强。     

Clinical efficacy and pharmacokinetics of artemisinin monotherapy and in combination with mefloquine in patients with falciparum malaria

1The aim of this study was to assess the pharmacokinetics, clinical efficacy and safety of artemisinin alone and in combination with mefloquine. 2Thirty-eight adults with symptomatic Plasmodium falciparum malaria were randomly assigned to receive either artemisinin (500 mg single dose followed by another 500 mg on day 1 and then 250 mg twice daily for 4 days) or artemisinin (500 mg single dose followed by 750 mg on day 1 and then 250 mg three times daily for one more day) in co-administration with mefloquine (250 mg three times daily for the first day). All drug administration was by the oral route. Patients were hospitalized at the Kibaha Designated District Hospital, Kibaha, Tanzania, for 6 days and a follow up for 3 weeks was performed. 3Treatment with the artemisinin/mefloquine combination resulted in a shorter parasite clearance time (PCT) of 24 (22, 27; 95% confidence interval) h vs 31 (27, 36) h and fever subsidence time (FST) of 14 (12, 16) h vs 20 (18, 23) h compared with artemisinin monotherapy. The 95% CI for the difference of the PCT and FST were 1.7, 12 and 3, 10, respectively. Parasites were detected in 7 out of 17 patients (41%) receiving artemisinin monotherapy at the 3rd and 4th week follow up visits. No parasites were detected after the combination therapy. 4The maximum plasma concentrations ( C_max) were similar after artemisinin monotherapy (615.4±387.0 ng ml⁻¹) and in combination with mefloquine (851.8±523.6 ng ml⁻¹). Elimination half-lives (t_1/2) were also identical at 2.2±0.6 h and 2.5±0.7 h, respectively. However, the AUC values were higher ( P<0.05) after combination therapy (3252±1873 ng  ml⁻¹ h) than after monotherapy (2234±1502 ng ml⁻¹ h). The oral clearance values were lower ( P<0.05) after combination therapy (195.4±86.9 l h⁻¹) than after monotherapy (314.3±189.4 l h⁻¹). PCT and FST normalized to initial parasitaemia correlated with AUC(0,  t) (r_s=0.56, P=0.02, r_s=0.58, P=0.01, respectively) and with C_max (r_s=0.62, P=0.01, r_s=0.68, P=0.005, respectively) in the artemisinin monotherapy only. 5One patient on the combination therapy developed a psychiatric condition and two patients on the monotherapy developed skin itch.     

青蒿素的组织化学定位及其含量相关性研究

目的 确定青蒿素储存部位并为高青蒿素含量黄花蒿植株筛选提供选择指标。方法 应用组织化学方法确定青蒿素的储存结构，应用统计学方法确定储存结构腺毛状分泌腺密度与青蒿素含量的相关性。结果 青蒿素储存于腺毛状分泌腺(BGT)和T-型网状分泌腺(NTFT)中，在叶中腺毛状分泌腺的密度与青蒿素含量正相关。结论 腺毛状分泌腺密度可作为高青蒿素含量黄花蒿育种筛选指标。     

与青蒿素相关的1,2,4-三恶烷及臭氧化物的研究进展

疟疾(malaria)是一种在热带、亚热带地区广泛传播的寄生虫病,世界的大半人口生活在这些疟疾流行的地区[1]。据世界卫生组织(WHO)报告,疟疾每年会导致上亿人生病、200多万人死亡,其中大多数为非洲儿童。20世纪60年代,疟原虫对传统的抗疟药物如奎宁、氯喹等开始产生抗药性,使形势     

Induction of Multidrug Tolerance in Plasmodium falciparum by Extended Artemisinin Pressure

Plasmodium falciparum resistance to artemisinin derivatives in Southeast Asia threatens global malaria control strategies. Whether delayed parasite clearance, which exposes larger parasite numbers to artemisinins for longer times, selects higher-grade resistance remains unexplored. We investigated whether long-lasting artemisinin pressure selects a novel multidrug-tolerance profile. Although 50% inhibitory concentrations for 10 antimalarial drugs tested were unchanged, drug-tolerant parasites showed higher recrudescence rates for endoperoxides, quinolones, and an antifolate, including partner drugs of recommended combination therapies, but remained susceptible to atovaquone. Moreover, the age range of intraerythrocytic stages able to resist artemisinin was extended to older ring forms and trophozoites. Multidrug tolerance results from drug-induced quiescence, which enables parasites to survive exposure to unrelated antimalarial drugs that inhibit a variety of metabolic pathways. This novel resistance pattern should be urgently monitored in the field because this pattern is not detected by current assays and represents a major threat to antimalarial drug policy.     

Pharmacokinetic considerations for use of artemisinin-based combination therapies against falciparum malaria in different ethnic populations

Introduction: Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) is used extensively as first-line treatment for uncomplicated falciparum malaria. There has been no rigorous assessment of the potential for racial/ethnic differences in the pharmacokinetic properties of ACTs that might influence their efficacy.

Areas covered: A comprehensive literature search was performed that identified 72 publications in which the geographical origin of the patients could be ascertained and the key pharmacokinetic parameters maximum drug concentration (C_max), area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC) and elimination half-life (t_½β) were available for one or more of the five WHO-recommended ACTs (artemether-lumefantrine, artesunate-amodiaquine, artesunate-mefloquine, dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine and artesunate-sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine). Comparisons of each of the three pharmacokinetic parameters of interest were made by drug (artemisinin derivative and long half-life partner), race/ethnicity (African, Asian, Caucasian, Melanesian, South American) and patient categories based on age and pregnancy status.

Expert opinion: The review identified no evidence of a clinically significant influence of race/ethnicity on the pharmacokinetic properties of the nine component drugs in the five ACTs currently recommended by WHO for first-line treatment of uncomplicated falciparum malaria. This provides reassurance for health workers in malaria-endemic regions that ACTs can be given in recommended doses with the expectation of adequate blood concentrations regardless of race/ethnicity.     

Artemisinin activity-based probes identify multiple molecular targets within the asexual stage of the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum 3D7

The artemisinin (ART)-based antimalarials have contributed significantly to reducing global malaria deaths over the past decade, but we still do not know how they kill parasites. To gain greater insight into the potential mechanisms of ART drug action, we developed a suite of ART activity-based protein profiling probes to identify parasite protein drug targets in situ. Probes were designed to retain biological activity and alkylate the molecular target(s) of Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 parasites in situ. Proteins tagged with the ART probe can then be isolated using click chemistry before identification by liquid chromatography–MS/MS. Using these probes, we define an ART proteome that shows alkylated targets in the glycolytic, hemoglobin degradation, antioxidant defense, and protein synthesis pathways, processes essential for parasite survival. This work reveals the pleiotropic nature of the biological functions targeted by this important class of antimalarial drugs.Malaria is a global health problem with 214 million new cases of malaria and 438,000 deaths reported in 2015, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa (1). The endoperoxide class of antimalarial drugs, such as artemisinin (ART), is the first line of defense against malaria infection against a backdrop of multidrug-resistant parasites (2) and lack of effective vaccines (3, 4). Given the effectiveness of the ART class, the question arises: how do these drugs kill parasites? A suggested mechanism of action involves the cleavage of the endoperoxide bridge by a source of Fe²⁺ or heme. This cleavage results in the formation of oxyradicals that rearrange into primary or secondary carbon-centered radicals. These radicals have been proposed to alkylate parasite proteins that somehow result in the death of the parasite (5). However, this proposal remains a subject of intense debate (6, 7), while these alkylated proteins are yet to be formally identified. So far, the proposed targets of ART action include a PfATP6 enzyme, the Plasmodium falciparum ortholog of mammalian sarcoendoplasmic reticulum Ca²¹-ATPases (SERCAs) (5), translational controlled tumor protein, and heme (5). Additionally, Haynes et al. (8) proposed that ART may act by impairing parasite redox homeostasis as a consequence of an interaction between the drug and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FADH) and/or other parasite flavoenzymes in the parasite, leading to the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). New approaches are required for definitive identification of ART molecular targets. This insight into the drug activation-dependent mechanism of action will be invaluable in the target-led development of more potent drugs with the potential to circumvent the emergence of resistance to current first-line ART-based therapies. The goal of this study was to identify ART-targeted proteins and their interacting partners in P. falciparum. We recently adopted a proteomic approach developed by Speers and Cravatt (9) to synthesize a suite of pyrethroid activity-based protein profiling probes (ABPPs) (10). Using alkyne/azide-coupling partners through “click chemistry,” we identified several cytochrome P450 enzymes that metabolized deltamethrin in rat liver microsomes (10). More recently, a chemical proteomic approach was developed to identify parasite proteins targeted by an albitiazolium antimalarial drug candidate in situ using a photoactivation cross-linking approach (11). However, this generic approach can introduce significant promiscuity in the proteins tagged based on the intracompartmental distribution of drug independent of actual mechanisms.Here, we introduced the design and synthesis of click chemistry-compatible activity-based probes incorporating the endoperoxide scaffold of ART as a warhead to alkylate and identified the ART molecular target(s) in asexual stages of the malaria parasite (Fig. 1). A major advantage of this strategy is that the reporter tags are introduced under “click” reaction conditions performed after the drug has achieved its biological effects, enabling purification, identification, and quantification of alkylated parasite’s proteins and their interacting partners as shown in Fig. 1B. To avoid nonspecific probe-dependent tagging, a common limitation of these approaches, we generated the respective “control” nonperoxide partners to improve the specificity and biological relevance of our resultant tagged protein list.Open in a separate windowFig. 1.Rational design of the ART-ABPPs. (A) Conversion of ART to ART-ABPPs involves the addition of a clickable handle (i.e., an alkyne or azide to the ART drug pharmacophore by the peptide-coupling method illustrated in SI Text). The structures of the alkyne (P1) and azide (P2) probes and respective inactive deoxy controls CP1 and CP2 with in vitro IC₅₀ values are presented. (B) General workflow of copper-catalyzed and copper-free click chemistry approaches used in the identification of alkylated proteins after in situ treatment of P. falciparum parasite with alkyne and azide ART-ABPPs. The azide- and alkyne-modified proteins are tagged with biotin azide and biotin dibenzocyclooctyne (Biotin-DIBO), respectively, via click reactions followed by affinity purification tandem with LC-MS/MS for protein identification.     

Multifunctional mesoporous nanoparticles as pH-responsive Fe reservoirs and artemisinin vehicles for synergistic inhibition of tumor growth

Artemisinin (ART) is an iron-dependent anti-cancer drug. However, simultaneous delivery of hydrophobic ART and Fe²⁺ ions into cancer cells remains a major challenge. Herein, we reported Fe₃O₄@C/Ag@mSiO₂ (FCA@mSiO₂) multifunctional nanocarriers which can load ART as high as 484 mg/g. Moreover, FCA@mSiO₂ nanoparticles demonstrated pH-responsive Fe²⁺ release, the concentration of Fe²⁺ ions can reach 2.765 nmol/L in HeLa cells cultured with FCA@mSiO₂ nanoparticles. The antitumor efficacy of ART-loaded FCA@mSiO₂ nanoparticles measured by MTT assay was significantly enhanced compared with free ART. It was suggested that the ART-loaded FCA@mSiO₂ nanoparticles are internalized by HeLa cells and located at the acidic compartments of endosomes and lysosomes, releasing Fe²⁺ ions to non-enzymatically convert ART to toxic products for killing cancer cells. This result provides a way for using promising natural drugs in anti-cancer therapeutics.