Researchers studying the Sweet Annie plant's medicinal compounds, have uncovered mechanisms for potential cancer and COVID-19 treatments. Vibrant green leaves sprout from tall fragrant plants sitting neatly in two rows of terracotta pots in Valerie Sponsel’s University of Texas at San Antonio (UT
“Around 50% of prescription drugs are derived from natural products. They’re made by plants, fungi, or bacteria. Half of these drugs originated in plants. That’s astonishing when you think of all the medicines that exist in the world,” Sponsel said. “Different plants produce different medicinal compounds. As far as cancer is concerned, there are several types of compounds that have always existed but have only been discovered in the last half-century.
“We’re in the first phases of studying the mechanism of action of Sweet Annie’s medicinal compounds to decide how to best deliver them and target therapy,” said Lin, an associate professor in the UTSA Department of Integrative Biology and the Department of Neurosciences, Developmental and Regenerative Biology. “We can be more specific. We can lower the concentration to directly target tumors.
Kaitlyn Varela, a doctoral student in Yoshimoto’s lab, fractionated and characterized the Sweet Annie leaf extracts by using NMR spectroscopy and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. “We then derivatized arteannuin B by chemically reducing it, and Dr. Lin showed that the reduced form of arteannuin B was not active against GBM at the same concentration. This result informed us how arteannuin B has bioactive properties,” said Yoshimoto. “To expand on our results, Kaitlyn showed that arteannuin B hinders the activity of SARS-CoV-2 main protease and caspase-8. Both enzymes are cysteine proteases.
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