Molecules (Nov 2021)

Region-Specific Biomarkers and Their Mechanisms in the Treatment of Lung Adenocarcinoma: A Study of <i>Panax quinquefolius</i> from Wendeng, China

  • Xuanming Zhang,
  • Liwen Han,
  • Peihai Li,
  • Shanshan Zhang,
  • Mengqi Zhang,
  • Xiaobin Li,
  • Jie Chu,
  • Lizhen Wang,
  • Pengfei Tu,
  • Yun Zhang,
  • Kechun Liu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26226829
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 26, no. 22
p. 6829

Abstract

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Panax quinquefolius, a popular medicinal herb, has been cultivated in China for many years. In this work, the region-specific profiles of metabolites in P. quinquefolius from Wendeng was investigated using liquid-chromatography–quadrupole–time-of-flight-(LC–Q–TOF)-based metabolomics analysis. The three most abundant biomarkers, identified as ginsenoside Rb3, notoginsenoside R1, and ginsenoside Rc, were the representative chemical components employed in the network pharmacology analysis. In addition, molecular docking and western blotting analyses revealed that the three compounds were effective binding ligands with Hsp90α, resulting in the inactivation of SRC and PI3K kinase, which eventually led to the inactivation of the Akt and ERK pathways and lung cancer suppression. The outcomes obtained herein demonstrated the intriguing chemical characteristics and potential functional activities of P. quinquefolius from Wendeng.

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