Effects of Leuzea carthamoides (maral root) in MCF-7 cells. Homo sapiens

Products derived from roots of Leuzea carthamoides DC. (maral root) are being promoted as anti-aging and adaptogenic. The phytoecdysteroids are considered as active principles with numerous beneficial effects, but little is known about the pharmacological properties of Leuzea extracts. We, therefore, investigated the effects of a lipophilic Leuzea root extract on ER+ breast cancer MCF-7 cells at transcriptional level in comparison to 17beta-estradiol and the ER antagonist tamoxifen. With the extract 241 genes were regulated more than 1.5 fold. We observed gene regulation in an anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic manner. Additionally, expression of several enzymes with oxidoreductase activity was induced including a very strong increase of the phase I enzyme CYP1A1, a possible link to the AhR pathway, which might explain other expression results, e.g. the correlated regulation of about 20 genes by Leuzea compared to 17beta-estradiol. Keywords: treatment with Leuzea carthamoides Overall design: MCF-7 cells were treated for 24 h with a lipophilic (dichloromethane) Leuzea root extract, 17beta-estradiol, tamoxifen and the solvent control (0,1% DMSO) in duplicate以鹿根（Leuzea carthamoides DC.，俗称maral root）的根部提取得到的产品，被宣传为兼具抗衰老与适应原功效。其中植物蜕皮甾体（phytoecdysteroids）被认为是发挥多种有益作用的活性成分，但目前学界对鹿根提取物的药理特性仍知之甚少。为此，本研究以17β-雌二醇及雌激素受体拮抗剂他莫昔芬作为对照，在转录水平上探究了亲脂性鹿根提取物对雌激素受体阳性乳腺癌MCF-7细胞的调控作用。该提取物可使241个基因的表达水平发生超过1.5倍的变化，其基因调控模式呈现抗增殖与促凋亡特征。此外，该提取物还可诱导多种具有氧化还原酶活性的酶类表达，其中I相代谢酶CYP1A1的表达显著上调——这一现象可能与芳烃受体（AhR）通路相关，或可解释其他基因表达结果，例如鹿根提取物与17β-雌二醇对约20个基因呈现出的协同调控趋势。关键词：鹿根（Leuzea carthamoides DC.）干预 整体实验设计：将MCF-7细胞分别以亲脂性（二氯甲烷提取）鹿根提取物、17β-雌二醇、他莫昔芬以及溶剂对照组（0.1% DMSO）处理24小时，每组设置2个平行重复样本。