ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1627656
Cepharanthine Hydrochloride Inhibits Prostate Cancer Progression by Modulating Gut Microbiota and Metabolites
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Ultrasound, Xinqiao Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
- 2Department of Urology, Second Affiliated Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Cepharanthine Hydrochloride (CH) is widely used in clinical settings to alleviate leukopenia caused by various tumors following radiotherapy and chemotherapy. However, it remains unclear whether CH have an inhibitory effect on the progression of prostate cancer, and whether this effect is mediated by gut microbiota. To address this question, the present study constructed normal mouse models of prostate cancer, as well as antibiotic-treated mouse models of prostate cancer.Methods: CH were then administered via gavage to both groups of model mice. After treatment, the tumor sizes of the mice were measured, and feces, blood, and tumor tissues from both groups were collected for 16S rDNA, metabolomics, and transcriptomics sequencing analysis. Results: Results showed CH treatment significantly suppressed prostate cancer growth in mice without antibiotic cocktail pretreatment, but not in antibiotic-pretreated mice. 16S rRNA sequencing revealed distinct gut microbiota alterations in CH-Ctrl versus Ctrl/CH-ABX groups, with increased g_Blautia, g_Lactobacillus, g_Butyricicoccus and decreased g_Akkermansia abundances. Metabolomic analysis identified 240 and 123 differentially abundant metabolites in CH-Ctrl vs. Ctrl and CH-ABX, respectively. RNA-seq detected 579 and 530 differentially expressed genes in CH-Ctrl vs. Ctrl and CH-ABX, respectively. Correlation analysis of differential gut microbiota, metabolites, and genes suggested that CH might inhibit prostate cancer growth by increasing the relative abundance of g_Blautia, g_Lactobacillus, and g_Butyricicoccus, suppressing g_Akkermansia proliferation, enhancing Acetylglycine metabolite production, upregulating Ttpa, Gm14964, Shc3, Elovl4 gene expression, and downregulating Gm10531, Bc021767 gene expression. Conclusion: This study is the first to explore the potential mechanisms of gut microbiota-mediated CH treatment for prostate cancer, providing a scientific basis for the application of CH in PCa therapy.
Keywords: prostate cancer, Cepharanthine hydrochloride, Gut Microbiota, metabolites of gut microbiota, antibiotic cocktail
Received: 20 May 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Luo, He, Dong, Jia, Sun, Zheng and Zhu. 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:
Peng He, Department of Ultrasound, Xinqiao Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
Ji Zheng, Department of Urology, Second Affiliated Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing, China
Jingzhen Zhu, Department of Urology, Second Affiliated Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.