Traditional Chinese Medicine Baicalin Suppresses mESCs Proliferation through Inhibition of miR-294 Expression

Abstract

Background: Traditional Chinese herbal medicines (TCMs) have been widely used against a broad spectrum of biological activities, including influencing the cardiac differentiation from mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). However, their effects and mechanisms of action on ESCs proliferation remain to be determined. The present study aimed to determine the effect of three TCMs, baicalin, ginsenoside Rg1, and puerarin, on mESCs proliferation and to elucidate the possible mechanism of their action. Methods: Cell proliferation was examined with a cell proliferation assay Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8), propidium iodide (PI) staining was used to visualize cell cycle. The mRNA expression level of c-myc, c-fos, c-jun, GAPDH and microRNAs were measured by quantitative real time RT-PCR. Results: We found that baicalin 50 μM suppressed the proliferation of mESCs as observations in more cells in G1 phase and less cells in either S phase or G2/M phase. Moreover, baicalin suppressed the expressions of c-jun and c-fos in mESCs and down-regulated the expression of miR-294. Overexpression of miR-294 in mESCs significantly reversed the effects of baicalin both on mESC proliferation and c-fos/c-jun expression. Conclusions: Baicalin down-regulation of miR-294 may be its key mechanism of action in decreasing mESCs proliferation.

Modulation of miRNAs by Natural Agents: Nature’s way of dealing with cancer

“…These miRNAs are predicted to be related to DNA repair signaling pathway. Our recently published data revealed that baicalin inhibited ESCs proliferation with increase of cells in G1-phase and a decrease in S phase [56] ( Figure 4). Baicalin downregulates proto-oncogenes c-jun and c-fos as well as down-regulation of miR-294 expression in mESCs while overexpression of miR-294 in mESCs reverses the alterations in the mESC proliferation and the expression of c-jun and c-fos induced by baicalin.…”

“…A number of reports, including some from our laboratory, have documented the modulation of miRNAs by natural agents [52][53][54][55][56] . Since epigenetic alterations play important roles in aberrant expression of several miRNAs in cancer cells, natural agents are now being investigated for their ability to reverse these changes that will ultimately lead to inhibition of tumor growth, invasiveness and metastasis.…”

Beneficial effect of magnesium lithospermate B on cerebral ischemia–reperfusion injury in rats involves the regulation of miR-107/glutamate transporter 1 pathway

“…There is growing evidence that the action of many drugs, including Chinese herbal medicine, can be mediated through regulation of miRNA expression (Wang et al, 2015;Zhao et al, 2012). As a popular Chinese herbal medicine, Danshen has been used for a long period of time to remove blood stasis and promote blood circulation (Zhou et al, 2005), which are beneficial to ischemic heart or brain diseases (Cheng, 2007).…”

The Construction and Identification of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Derived from Acute Myelogenous Leukemia Cells

“…Previous studies have demonstrated that evaluating the efficiency of both ESCs and iPSCs in cardiac cell therapy in an in vitro analysis is currently the focus of mainstream research [7, 8], but in recent years, iPSCs have become a great alternative for the treatment of AML [9]. These cells share many similarities with embryonic stem cells (ESCs), which serve as a model to study molecular embryogenesis and have a great potential for applications in regenerative medicine [10], including multilineage differentiation and self-renewal [11]. Moreover, embryonic stem cells (ESCs) can be differentiated into cardiac myocyte-like cells [12] Both iPSCs and ESCs are easily accessible and expandable in culture and have broad developmental potential and a high capacity for reproducibly to differentiate into spontaneously beating cardiac cells in vitro [13].…”