• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.62 no.2
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• pp.123-127
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• 2019

Medicinal herb in Asian countries has been traditionally used for a long time. However, the safety and adverse effect of medicinal herb have not been established yet. The aim of this study is to evaluate toxicity in the oral administration of Clausena excavata (C. excavata) in male ICR mice for 3 weeks and the noobserved adverse effect level (NOAEL). C. excavata has been used as a medicinal herb for the treatment of dermatopathy, malaria, abdominal pain, dysentery, and enteritis. C. excavata was orally administered daily for 21 days at a dose of 100, 250, 500, 1000, and 2000 mg/kg/day (MPK). There were no significant differences in mortalities, clinical signs, body weight changes, hematological, and serum biochemistry examination in all animals administrated with C. excavate. Consequently, these findings indicated that C. excavata did not affect the toxic effect in ICR mice and the NOAEL of C. excavata was considered as more than 2000 MPK.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.4311-4316
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• 2015

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a primary liver cancer with high global incidence and mortality rates. Current candidate drugs to treat HCC remain lacking and those in use possess undesirable side effects. In this investigation, the antiproliferative effects of dentatin (DTN), a natural coumarin, were evaluated on HepG2 cells and DTN's probable preliminary molecular mechanisms in apoptosis induction were further investigated. DTN significantly (p<0.05) suppressed proliferation of HepG2 cells with an $IC_{50}$ value of $12.0{\mu}g/mL$, without affecting human normal liver cells, WRL-68 ($IC_{50}$ > $50{\mu}g/mL$) causing $G_0/G_1$ cell cycle arrest via apoptosis induction. Caspase colorimetric assays showed markedly increased levels of caspase-3 and caspase-9 activities throughout the treatment period. Western blotting of treated HepG2 cells revealed inhibition of $NF-{\kappa}B$ that triggers the mitochondrial-mediated apoptotic signaling pathway by up-regulating cytoplasmic cytochrome c and Bax, and down-regulating Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL. The current findings suggest DTN has the potential to be developed further as an anticancer compound targeting human HCC.