Emodin: The Weed That Starves Tumors (in Mice, at Least)

Overview

Paper Summary › Explain Like I'm Five › Conflicts of Interest › Identified Limitations › Rating Explanation › Good to know › Topic Hierarchy › File Information ›

Paper Summary

Paperzilla title

This study found that emodin, a natural compound from Chinese herbs, inhibits tumor angiogenesis and growth in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) models by increasing the expression of SerRS, a transcriptional repressor of VEGFA. Emodin directly interacts with NCOR2, leading to its dissociation from the SerRS promoter and subsequent SerRS activation.

Explain Like I'm Five

Scientists found that a special ingredient from some plants can stop a type of bad lump in the body from growing new "food roads." This makes it harder for the bad lump to get bigger.

Possible Conflicts of Interest

None identified

Identified Limitations

Lack of human clinical data

The study primarily uses in vitro and in vivo models, lacking human clinical data to support the findings. Translational research is needed to confirm the efficacy and safety of emodin in human TNBC patients.

Poor pharmacokinetic properties of emodin

While emodin shows promising results in preclinical models, its poor pharmacokinetic properties, particularly low bioavailability, pose a significant challenge for clinical translation.

Multiple pharmacological activities of emodin

The study focuses on the anti-angiogenic effects of emodin, but its other pharmacological activities, such as cytotoxicity and induction of apoptosis, could confound the interpretation of the results. It's crucial to disentangle these effects to fully understand emodin's mechanism of action.

Incomplete mechanistic understanding

Although the study identifies NCOR2 as the direct target of emodin, further research is needed to fully elucidate the downstream signaling pathways and the precise mechanism by which emodin modulates NCOR2 activity.

Rating Explanation

This is a well-designed preclinical study with compelling in vitro and in vivo data supporting the anti-angiogenic and anti-tumor effects of emodin in TNBC models. The identification of NCOR2 as a direct target is a significant finding. However, the lack of human clinical data and the known pharmacokinetic limitations of emodin warrant a rating of 4 instead of 5.

Good to know

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Topic Hierarchy

Domain: Life Sciences

Field: Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics

Subfield: Toxicology

File Information

Original Title: Herb-sourced emodin inhibits angiogenesis of breast cancer by targeting VEGFA transcription

Uploaded: July 14, 2025 at 11:27 AM

Privacy: Public