Epimedium is a classical Chinese herbal medicine, which has been used extensively to treat various diseases, such as sexual dysfunction, osteoporosis, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and brain diseases. Flavonoids, such as icariin, baohuoside I, icaritin, and epimedin C, are the main active ingredients with diverse pharmacological activities. Currently, most Epimedium flavonoids are extracted from Epimedium plants, but this method cannot meet the increasing market demand. Biotransformation strategies promised huge potential for increasing the contents of high-value Epimedium flavonoids, which would promote the full use of the Epimedium herb. Complete biosynthesis of major Epimedium flavonoids by microbial cell factories would enable industrial-scale production of Epimedium flavonoids. This review summarizes the structures, pharmacological activities, and biosynthesis pathways in the Epimedium plant, as well as the extraction methods of major Epimedium flavonoids, and advancements in the biotransformation and complete microbial synthesis of Epimedium flavonoids, which would provide valuable insights for future studies on Epimedium herb usage and the production of Epimedium flavonoids.

Drug resistance often occurs after chemotherapy in esophageal cancer patients, leading to cancer metastasis and recurrence. However, the relationship among cancer cell migration, recurrence and drug resistance in esophageal cancer drug-resistant cells has not been clearly explained. In this study, we constructed paclitaxel (PTX)-resistant esophageal cancer cells to explore the causes of drug resistance and poor prognosis after chemotherapy in esophageal cancer. Colony formation assay was used to evaluate the difference of colony formation between parental cells and drug resistance cells. Microsphere formation assay was used to examine the phenotype of stem cells. Wound healing and Transwell assays were used to detect the migration ability of drug-resistant cells. Western blotting and immunofluorescence assays were used to explore the mechanisms. Finally, we used nude mouse xenograft model to explore the tumor characteristics and the expression of relative proteins to verify our findings in vivo. Our study demonstrated that the cancer cell stemness characteristics exist in drug-resistant esophageal cancer cells, that expressed the biomarkers of stem cells and were prone to epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Our results suggested that the expression of EMT biomarkers and stemness-related proteins increased in esophageal cancer cells after continuously using chemotherapeutic drugs for a period of time. This study indicated that simultaneously targeting EMT and stemness could be a better strategy for the treatment of esophageal cancer drug resistance.

Echinops davuricus Trevir. 1819, a member of the Cardueae tribe in the Asteraceae (Compositae), is an erect perennial herb, distinguished by bipinnatipartite leaves with entire or sparsely spiny-to...