ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1564999
This article is part of the Research TopicInsights in Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery: 2024View all 18 articles
Eucommia ulmoides seed oil is a complementary food for suppressing digestive tumors
Provisionally accepted
Jinzheng Wu1
Wen Liang1Durairaj Karthick Rajan2Yan Liu1Xin Yang1
Hao Jiang2Jinhua Yan2Bo Shu1
Shubing Zhang2*- 1Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China
- 2Central South University, Changsha, China
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Background: Natural products and their bioactive components serve as valuable resources for anticancer drug discovery. Eucommia ulmoides, a medicinal and edible plant widely used in traditional medicine, contains functionally significant compounds in its seeds, particularly Eucommia ulmoides seed oil (EUSO). Previous studies have demonstrated EUSO's promising preventive and therapeutic potential against metabolic disorders, including hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. However, its therapeutic efficacy against malignant tumors in cancers of the digestive system remains to be explored.: To evaluate the antitumor effects of EUSO, Cell viability, clone formation, migration capacities, and apoptosis rates were assessed through CCK-8 assays, colony formation assays, Transwell assays, and flow cytometry in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and pancreatic cancer cell models. In vivo antitumor efficacy was further validated using subcutaneous xenograft models. Mechanistically, RNA-seq and Western blotting were conducted to identify the regulated signaling pathways by EUSO. Results: EUSO exhibited dose-dependent suppression of HCC and pancreatic cancer cell proliferation, colony formation, and migration. Flow cytometry confirmed EUSO induced cell apoptosis. In vivo, EUSO suppressed tumor growth in xenograft models. Mechanistic studies revealed that EUSO downregulated PI3K-AKT-mTOR pathway activation, evidenced by reduced phosphorylation of AKT (Ser473) and mTOR (Ser2448).EUSO attenuates the malignant progression of digestive system cancers by inhibiting the PI3K-AKT-mTOR pathway. These results provide mechanistic evidence supporting the potential application of EUSO as an adjuvant therapeutic agent in cancer management and warrant further clinical investigation into its chemopreventive and complementary therapeutic value.
Keywords: Digestive System, Eucommia ulmoides seed oil, EUSO, PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, Complementary food
Received: 22 Jan 2025; Accepted: 11 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wu, Liang, Karthick Rajan, Liu, Yang, Jiang, Yan, Shu and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shubing Zhang, Central South University, Changsha, China
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