The Action of Chinese Medicinal Herbs on Prostate Cancer

说明（由申请人提供）：中草药在世界范围内被广泛使用。然而，这些草药的功效和作用机制尚未得到很好的研究。利用标准化设计来研究其疗效，并利用现代技术来阐明其作用机制是十分必要的。本课题拟采用抗肿瘤中药制剂ZYD88，在前列腺LNCaP肿瘤异种移植动物模型上验证ZYD88诱导前列腺癌细胞凋亡的假设。细胞凋亡将通过检测caspase-3激活和CK18、常见的早期凋亡事件和DNA片段（肿瘤组织切片中细胞凋亡的标志）来确定。此外，细胞色素c从线粒体向胞质溶胶的释放以及Bcl-2家族蛋白（Bcl-2, BcI-XL， Bax和Bak）的细胞水平，凋亡通路中的事件将通过Western blotting分析来确定。将ZYD88处理和未处理样品的数据进行比较。将进行ZYD88作用的剂量反应和时程分析。这些研究将有助于我们了解中药在癌症治疗中的功效和机制，这是我的职业目标。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Chinese herbal medicines have been widely used in the world. However, the efficacy and mechanisms of these herbal medicines are not well studied. It is imperative to investigate their efficacy using standardized design, and to elucidate the mechanisms of their action using modern technology. By employing an anti-tumor Chinese herbal formula, ZYD88, the current research proposal is designed to test the hypothesis that ZYD88 induces apoptosis in prostate cancer cells in a xenograft animal model with prostate LNCaP tumor. Cell apoptosis will be determined by assaying caspase-3 activation and CK18, the common early apoptotic events, and DNA fragmentation, a hallmark of cell apoptosis in tumor tissue sections. Furthermore, the release of cytochrome c from mitochondria to cytosol and the cellular levels of Bcl-2 family proteins (Bcl-2, BcI-XL, Bax and Bak), events in apoptotic pathway will be determined by Western blotting analysis. The data will be compared between ZYD88 treated and untreated samples. Dose-response and time-course analyses of ZYD88 action will be performed. These studies will facilitate our understanding of the efficacy and mechanisms of Chinese herbal medicine in cancer therapy, a goal of my career.