Study On Chemical Constituents And Estrogen-like Action Mechanism Of Selaginella Serrata

Estrogens are vital regulation hormone for women and have broad range of biological activities. Estrogens play important roles in both the function of the reproductive system and the female mammary gland and so-classical target tissues, such as the brain, bone, liver, kidney, and cardiovascular system. As the level of estrogen decreases in postmenopausal women incidences of fracture in osteoporosis, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases increase.Estrogens replacement therapy is able to attenuate symptoms in menopause syndrome, reduce incidence of above-mentioned diseases. However, studies find that long term use of estrogens also increase the risk of stroke, blood clots, heart attacks and dementia and particularly breast and uterine tumor in postmenopausal women.Phytoestrogens are the compounds capable of binding estrogen receptors which have dual actions. They increased the levels of estrogens when in low estrogens levels, in the other hands; they reduced the levels of estrogens when in high estrogens levels.China is vast in territory, with the extremely rich resources of Chinese herbal medicine, and many unique medicinal plants only distribution in China, the country's long-term clinical medical practice and accumulated rich experience in the application of plant disease control, but study on phytoestrogens is rare. Search for natural, no side effect plant estrogenic from Chinese herbal medicine and further clarifying the role of Chinese herbal medicine mechanisms will guide clinicians to consider the efficiency and safety when prescribing.According to the classical signal transduction pathway of estrogen, we use Luciferase reporter gene to screen phytoestrogen form Selaginella tamariscina, Pinus massoniana Lamb, Corallodiscus flabellate, Dryopteris sublaeta Ching et Hsu and Leonurus heterophyllus. In this study,the p?gal-Control vector, the pERE-TAL-luc vector, the pCNX2-hER?/pCNX2-hER?vector were transfected into HEK293 cell line. If the components in the herbs combine with the ER, then it could induce the expression of reporter gene controlled by ERE.It is found that the water extract part and n-butanol extract part of Selaginella tamariscina are the active parts.1. The experimental study of estrogenic activities of five kinds of Chinese herbal medicinesUse uterus growth test and reporter gene technique to study the estrogenic activity of Selaginella tamariscina, Pinus massoniana Lamb, Corallodiscus flabellate, Dryopteris sublaeta Ching et Hsu and Leonurus heterophyllus Sweet.Result: The botanical extracts of Selaginella tamariscina can increase the uterine weights of mice (P<0.01); In the expression of reporter gene controlled by ERE, Either ER?or ER?'s...