Cyclooxygenases (COXs) are key enzymes in the conversion of arachidonic acid into prostanoids which are involved in apoptosis and inflammation. Two distinct COXs have been identified: COX-1 which is constitutively expressed and COX-2 which is induced by different products such as tumor promoters or growth factors. Previously, we demonstrated that a plant steroid, diosgenin, was a new megakaryoc...

A reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detector (HPLC–DAD) was developed and validated to quantitate diosgenin in berries of Solanum nigrum using C18 analytical column as stationary phase and acetonitrile: water (92: 08, v/v) as mobile phase. The flow rate of mobile phase was kept at 1.0 ml/min. Column oven temperature was set at 25 0 C. The method was ...

BACKGROUND/AIMS The bioactive steroid sapogenin diosgenin is considered for a wide variety of applications including treatment of malignancy. The substance counteracts tumor growth in part by stimulating apoptosis of tumor cells. Similar to apoptosis of nucleated cells, erythrocytes may enter suicidal death or eryptosis, which is characterized by cell shrinkage and cell membrane scrambling with...

Differentiation therapy is a means to treat cancer and is induced by different agents with low toxicity and more specificity than traditional ones. Diosgenin, a plant steroid, is able to induce megakaryocytic differentiation or apoptosis in human HEL erythroleukemia cells in a dose-dependent manner. However, the exact mechanism by which diosgenin induces megakaryocytic differentiation has not b...

A rapid and accurate method is described for the determination of diosgenin in Dioscorea conzposita roots. After acid hydrolysis and solvent extraction of the root, pure diosgenin is isolated by thin-layer chromatography, treated with sulphuric acid methanol, and the resultant chromophore is measured by spectrophotometry. Similarly, gas liquid chromatography is used to evaluate statistically th...

N-Bromosuccinimide, Zl5-Steroids, Diosgenin, Cholesterol, Stigmastane, Dehydroisoandrosterone The reaction of N-bromosuccinimide with Zl5-steroids such as, diosgenin, cholesterol, stigmasterol and dehydroisoandrosterone were studied. It was found that NBS in a solvent mixture of acetone, water and acetic acid (8:1:0.1) oxidises the olefinic bond of all the previous steroidal compounds to the co...

The electrochemical behavior of breast cancer cells was studied on a graphite electrode by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and potentiometric stripping analysis (PSA). In both cases, only one oxidative peak at approximately +0.75 V was observed. The peak area in PSA was used to study the growth of the cells and the effect of diosgenin on MCF-7 cells. The results showed that diosgenin can effectively in...

fenugreek (trigonella foenum-graecum l.) has a long and respected history of medicinal uses in middle east and persian medicine. the hypocholesterolaemic and hypoglycaemic effects of fenugreek were attributed to its major steroidal sapogenin, diosgenin and its major alkaloid, trigonelline. the knowledge of diosgenin and trigonelline biosynthesis is derived from studies of cholesterol and nicoti...

background and objective: chronic diabetes mellitus (dm) leads to cardiovascular dysfunction. diosgenin is a natural steroidal saponin with cardiovascular protective potential. in this research study, the beneficial effect of diosgenin was evaluated on some markers of oxidative stress in cardia tissue of streptozotocin (stz)-diabetic rats. materials and methods: male wistar rats (n = 28) were d...

In order to evaluate the effects of different pretreatments on microbial transformation of saponins in Dioscorea zingiberensis (DZW), various methods have been systematically studied on a large scale. Five pretreatments, including physical separation, catalytic solvent extraction, ultrasonic fermentation, complex enzymatic hydrolyzation and enzymatic saccharification, were performed on DZW. Com...