Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Nov 15, 2021; 13(11): 1741-1754
Published online Nov 15, 2021. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v13.i11.1741
Preventive and inhibitive effects of Yiwei Xiaoyu granules on the development and progression of spasmolytic polypeptide-expressing metaplasia lesions
Wan-Qun Chen, Feng-Liang Tian, Jin-Wei Zhang, Xiao-Jun Yang, Yan-Ping Li
Wan-Qun Chen, Feng-Liang Tian, Xiao-Jun Yang, Yan-Ping Li, Department of Gastroenterology, Chongqing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chongqing 400000, China
Jin-Wei Zhang, Department of Dermatology and Cosmetology, Chongqing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chongqing 400000, China
Author contributions: Yang XJ and Li YP contributed equally to this work; Chen WQ, Tian FL, Yang XJ and Li YP designed the research study; Chen WQ and Zhang JW performed the research; Tian FL and Zhang JW contributed new reagents and analytic tools; Chen WQ, Yang XJ and Li YP analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81904175; Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing, China, No. cstc2018jcyjAX0756; and Chongqing Health Planning Commission Project, No. ZY201802063 and No. 2019ZY013111.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Chongqing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine Institutional Review Board (Approval No.2019-ky-25).
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All procedures involving animals were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Chongqing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine (IACUC protocol number: [Protocol No. 2020-DWKY-01]).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest in this work.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yan-Ping Li, PhD, Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, Chongqing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 6 Panxi Qizhi Road, Jiangbei District, Chongqing 400000, China. lyp20210203@163.com
Received: June 3, 2021
Peer-review started: June 3, 2021
First decision: June 30, 2021
Revised: July 10, 2021
Accepted: August 24, 2021
Article in press: August 24, 2021
Published online: November 15, 2021
Processing time: 162 Days and 3.6 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Spasmolytic polypeptide-expressing metaplasia (SPEM) is the first metaplastic lesion to evolve and probably progresses to intestinal metaplasia.

Research motivation

Our group proved that Yiwei Xiaoyu granules (YWXY) could improve the mucosa atrophy, intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia of chronic gastric gastritis in a clinical trial, while the specific mechanism of YWXY still remains largely unknown.

Research objectives

To elucidate microRNA-7-mediated preventive and inhibitive effects of YWXY in SPEM lesions.

Research methods

Gastric mucosa biopsies were collected both in human and in a tamoxifen-induced SPEM mouse model. Then immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence were performed to validate the SPEM lesions, and the potential mechanism was investigated. RNA transcripts were detected with reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction.

Research results

We showed evidence that microRNA-7 downregulation was an early event in the cascade from metaplasia to gastric cancer and that it contributed to the establishment of an intestinal expression profile through regulation of trefoil factor 2 both in human gastric mucosa and an in vivo model. We validated that YWXY had the ability of inhibiting the cell proliferation and restoring the expression of microRNA-7 by mediating trefoil factor 2 in SPEM lesions.

Research conclusions

To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time to use the SPEM mouse model to uncover the effectiveness and potential mechanism of Chinese medicine for the precursor of gastric adenocarcinoma.

Research perspectives

Nevertheless, the detailed mechanism of YWXY to prevent and inhibit the development and progression of SPEM lesions should be examined carefully in our next experiment. We believe it shows great potential for drug development to prevent and treat precancerous lesions.