In vitro anti-cancer efficacy and phyto-chemical screening of solvent extracts of Kigelia africana (Lam.) Benth
- Authors: Mukavi, Justus W , Mayeku, Philip W , Nyaga, Justine M , Kituyi, Sarah N
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/429439 , vital:72610 , xlink:href="https://www.cell.com/heliyon/pdf/S2405-8440(20)31325-6.pdf"
- Description: Kigelia africana is a medicinal plant growing naturally in many parts of Africa. In Kenya, a water concoction of the plant is used to treat breast and prostate cancers. Laboratory data on its anti-cancer activity and active principles is limited, hence no scientific rationale for its medicinal use. This study reports on in-vitro toxic activities of dichloromethane and methanol extracts of the plant against human breast cancer cells and phytochemical screening of the two extracts.
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- Date Issued: 2020
STIP1/HOP regulates the actin cytoskeleton through interactions with actin and changes in actin-binding proteins cofilin and profilin:
- Authors: Beckley, Samantha Joy , Hunter, Morgan C , Kituyi, Sarah N , Wingate, Ianthe , Chakraborty, Abantika , Schwarz, Kelly , Makhubu, Matodzi P , Rousseau, Robert P , Ruck, Duncan K , de la Mare, Jo-Anne , Blatch, Gregory L , Edkins, Adrienne L
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/165373 , vital:41238 , https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21093152
- Description: Cell migration plays a vital role in both health and disease. It is driven by reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton, which is regulated by actin-binding proteins cofilin and profilin. Stress-inducible phosphoprotein 1 (STIP1) is a well-described co-chaperone of the Hsp90 chaperone system, and our findings identify a potential regulatory role of STIP1 in actin dynamics. We show that STIP1 can be isolated in complex with actin and Hsp90 from HEK293T cells and directly interacts with actin in vitro via the C-terminal TPR2AB-DP2 domain of STIP1, potentially due to a region spanning two putative actin-binding motifs. We found that STIP1 could stimulate the in vitro ATPase activity of actin, suggesting a potential role in the modulation of F-actin formation. Interestingly, while STIP1 depletion in HEK293T cells had no major effect on total actin levels, it led to increased nuclear accumulation of actin, disorganization of F-actin structures, and an increase and decrease in cofilin and profilin levels, respectively. This study suggests that STIP1 regulates the cytoskeleton by interacting with actin, or via regulating the ratio of proteins known to affect actin dynamics.
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- Date Issued: 2020
Hop/STIP1 depletion alters nuclear structure via depletion of nuclear structural protein emerin:
- Authors: Kituyi, Sarah N , Edkins, Adrienne L
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/164435 , vital:41118 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2018.11.073
- Description: Hop/STIP1 is a co-chaperone of Hsp70 and Hsp90 that regulates a number of cell biology processes via interactions with cellular proteins. Here we report a new relationship between Hop and the nuclear structural protein emerin in maintenance of nuclear morphology. Depletion or overexpression of Hop resulted in the reduction of emerin protein levels via proteasomal and lysosomal pathways.
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- Date Issued: 2018
NMR structural elucidation of channaine, an unusual alkaloid from Sceletium tortuosum:
- Authors: Veale, Clinton G L , Chen, Weiyang , Chaudhary, Sushil , Kituyi, Sarah N , Isaacs, Michelle , Hoppe, Heinrich C , Edkins, Adrienne L , Combrinck, Sandra , Mehari, Bewketu , Viljoen, Alvaro
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/164345 , vital:41110 , DOI: 10.1016/j.phytol.2017.11.018
- Description: Chemical interrogation of the Sceletium genus and Amaryllidaceae family of plants has yielded a diverse array of aryl-hydroindole containing alkaloids. Included in this class is channaine, which was tentatively identified, without comprehensive structural elucidation from Sceletium tortuosum in 1957. Following its isolation from S. strictum, the structure of channaine was eventually resolved by X-ray crystallographic analysis, which revealed an unusual cage-like ring structure at the interface of two aryl-hydroindole subunits. However, since this report in 1978, channaine has not re-appeared in the literature. In this letter, the full NMR characterisation of channaine, isolated from S. tortuosum collected from St Helena in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, is reported for the first time.
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- Date Issued: 2018