Apoptosis - In this study, we prepared a flavonoid-containing fraction from a crude acetone extract of Rhus verniciflua Stokes (RVS), traditionally used as a food additive and as an herbal medicine, and named RVS chloroform–methanol fraction (RCMF).

This study demonstrated that RCMF exhibited a selective growth inhibition and apoptosis induction on transformed cells.

Our findings suggest that RCMF is an agent which may be capable of inducing growth inhibition and apoptosis of hepatic tumor cells.

(Article)

In this study, we characterized the antioxidant activity of the RVS ethanol extract and identified the active compounds responsible for this activity.

These results suggest that the flavonoid derivatives in F₂ are the compounds in the RVS ethanol extract that act as antioxidants.

(Article)

Combined treatment of an ethanol extract of RVS and LY294002 (a PI3K inhibitor) markedly increased apoptosis compared to treatment with an ethanol extract of RVS alone.

The role of PI3K-Akt/PKB in this process was confirmed by constitutive expression of inactive mutants of this kinase in AGS cells.

These results suggest that an ethanol extract of RVS induces apoptosis via a mitochondrial death pathway in human gastric cancer cells, but not in normal cells, and inhibition of the PI3K-Akt/PKB pathway enhanced the mitochondrial death pathway.

(Article)

Anti-Cancer - Butein (3,4,2',4'-