Germacrone, curdione, and furanodiene have been shown to be useful in the treatment of breast cancer but the pharmacological mechanism of action is unclear. In this paper, we explored a new method to study the molecular network and function of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) herbs and their corresponding ingredients with bioinformatics tools, including PubChem Compound Database, BATMAN-TCM, SystemsDock, Coremine Medical, Gene ontology, and KEGG. Eleven targeted genes/proteins, 4 key pathways, and 10 biological processes were identified to participate in the mechanism of action in treating breast cancer with germacrone, curdione, and furanodiene. The information achieved by the bioinformatics tools was useful to interpretation the molecular mechanism for the treatment of germacrone, curdione, and furanodiene on breast cancers.

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Background Nowadays plant derived natural compounds have gained huge amount of research attention especially in food and medicine industries due to their multitude of biological and therapeutic properties as alternative medicines. Methods In this study, a diterpenoid compound taxoquinone, isolated from Metasequoia glyptostroboides was evaluated for its α-glucosidase and tyrosinase inhibitory efficacy in terms of its potent anti-diabetic and depigmentation potential, respectively. Results As a result, taxoquinone at the concentration range of 100-3,000 μg/mL and 200-1,000 μg/mL showed potent efficacy on inhibiting α-glucosidase and tyrosinase enzymes by 9.24-51.32% and 11.14-52.32%, respectively. Conclusions The findings of this study clearly evident potent therapeutic efficacy of an abietane diterpenoid taxoquinone isolated from M. glyptostroboides with a possibility for using it as a novel candidate in food and medicine industry as a natural alternative medicine to prevent diabetes mellitus type-2 related disorders and as a depigmentation agent.

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The anticancer activity of isofuranodiene, extracted from Smyrnium olusatrum, was evaluated in human breast adenocarcinomas MDA-MB 231 and BT 474, and Caucasian prostate adenocarcinoma PC 3 cell lines by MTS assay. MTS assay showed a dose-dependent growth inhibition in the tumor cell lines after isofuranodiene treatment. The best antiproliferative activity of the isofuranodiene was found on PC 3 cells with an IC50 value of 29 μM, which was slightly less than the inhibition against the two breast adenocarcinoma cell lines with IC50 values of 59 and 55 μM on MDA-MB 231 and BT 474, respectively. Hoechst 33258 assay was performed in order to study the growth inhibition mechanism in prostate cancer cell line; the results indicate that isofuranodiene induces apoptosis. Overall, the understudy compound has a good anticancer activity especially towards the PC 3. On the contrary, it is less active on Chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO) and human embryonic kidney (HEK 293) appearing as a good candidate as a potential natural anticancer drug with low side effects.

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Tyrosinase is a multifunctional, glycosylated, and copper-containing oxidase, which catalyzes the first two steps in mammalian melanogenesis and is responsible for enzymatic browning reactions in damaged fruits during post-harvest handling and processing. Neither hyperpigmentation in human skin nor enzymatic browning in fruits are desirable. These phenomena have encouraged researchers to seek new potent tyrosinase inhibitors for use in foods and cosmetics. This article surveys tyrosinase inhibitors newly discovered from natural and synthetic sources. The inhibitory strength is compared with that of a standard inhibitor, kojic acid, and their inhibitory mechanisms are discussed.

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Investigation of the leaves of Chloranthus tianmushanensis resulted in the isolation and characterization of two new sesquiterpene dimers with a rare 18-membered triester ring, tianmushanol (1) and 8-O-methyltianmushanol (2), and four known sesquiterpenes. Their structures were established by spectroscopic means. The inhibitory activities against tyrosinase of all isolates were also evaluated.

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