靶向上皮间质转化:中药抗肿瘤转移和器官纤维化新策略

Targeting Epithelial-mesenchymal Transition: Novel Anti-metastasis and Anti-fibrosis Strategies for Traditional Chinese Medicine

上皮间质转化(EMT)是上皮细胞失去上皮特征,获得间质表型的生物学现象,参与了多种生理病理过程,尤其是肿瘤转移和器官纤维化。EMT及其信号通路蕴含着抗肿瘤转移和器官纤维化的潜在药物靶点。从中药中发现了一些具有抑制EMT作用的化合物、提取物及中药复方。该文简述了EMT这一生物现象,并通过查阅Web of science、Pub Med等数据库,对中药抑制EMT的药理作用与分子机制进行综述,以期为基于EMT的创新中药研究提供参考。

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition(EMT),a biological phenomenon,refers to the loss of epithelial characteristics and gain of mesenchymal phenotype.EMT actively participates in several physiological and pathological processes,especially in tumor metastasis and organ fibrosis.The EMT signaling pathways provide many potential drug targets for drug discovery.Recent studies showed that a large number of pure compounds,extracts,and formations from traditoinal Chinese medicine(TCM)are able to inhibit the EMT process.In this review,we briefly introduce the EMT phenomenon and then discuss the inhibitory effects and the underlying mechanisms of EMT inhibitors isolated from TCM using references obtained from literature database such as Web of Science and PubMed.This review will provide more information for the study of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the field of EMT.