ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Integrated gut microbiota and metabolomics analysis reveals the antitumor effects of ergosta-4,6,8(14),22-tetraen-3-one purified from the medicinal fungus Pholiota adiposa in tumor-bearing mice
Provisionally accepted
- 1Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology College, Jilin, China
- 2Changchun Sci-Tech University, Changchun, China
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This study investigated the antitumor mechanism of ergosta-4,6,8(14),22-tetraen-3-one (ETO), extracted from Pholiota adiposa, in H22 tumor-bearing mice through integrated metabolomics and gut microbiota analysis. Methods: After establishing the H22 tumor mouse model, we performed serum metabolomics through nontargeted UHPLC-HRMS and conducted gut microbiota profiling. Result: ETO exhibited significant antitumor effects, with tumor inhibition rates of 59.74% (low dose) and 76.10% (high dose).Untargeted metabolomics revealed that molecules downstream of the tricarboxylic acid cycle, arachidonic acid and linoleic acid were upregulated.Gut microbiota analysis revealed ETO-mediated enrichment of beneficial bacteria (Firmicutes and Lactobacillus) and suppression of the harmful bacterial species Bartonella. Integrative analysis demonstrated a negative correlation between indole-3-acetonitrile and Bartonella. Conclusion: ETO can inhibit the growth of tumor cells, and its effect on liver and kidney damage is less than that of CTX.Linoleate, and L-tryptophan emerged as potential therapeutic targets, while Firmicutes and Lactobacillus enrichment suggests gut microbiota-mediated antitumor activity, providing novel insights for hepatocellular carcinoma treatment.
Keywords: Ergosta-4, 6, 8(14), 22-tetraen-3-one, Metabolomics, Gut Microbiota, H22 tumor-bearingmice, Pharmacological mechanism
Received: 25 Jun 2025; Accepted: 03 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 LIU, Wang, Liu, Qin, Zheng, Zhang and Hu. 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: Xiao-yan Wang, wangxiaoyana1@126.com
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