Project description:The purpose of the present study was to establish at the molecular level, a genetic profile of the biological activity of essential sandalwood oil from Santalum album, produced under standardized conditions. The model system under investigation is based on living human skin explants. This protocol permits to compare ex vivo the effects of SO at the histological level as well as the changes of gene expression as a function of SO concentration and duration of treatment. In the present report, Sandalwood oil (S. album) was applied to living human skin explants to evaluate the sustained activity of the oil through gene expression profiling. Transcriptomic analysis showed a number of metabolic pathways and biological activities triggered by treatments previously described for aloe, curcumin and luteolin. No inflammatory responses accompanied the beneficial activities. The most intriguing impact was the natural effect on the retinoic acid (vitamin A) metabolism. Furthermore, we found that mechanisms normally acting in more specialized cell types such as immune cells, adipocytes, nerve cells, or hair follicles were activated in human skin explants in response to sandalwood oil. Thus, the oil may have the potential of further beneficial activities such as its antibacterial activity among other protective mechanisms. These results corroborate at a molecular level the rationale for clinical studies with sandalwood oil and support recent studies of patients with eczema (atopic dermatitis) or acne, which is often accompanied by bacterial growth on skin of Propionibacterium acnes.
Project description:Background: Frankincense (Ru Xiang) and sandalwood (Tan Xiang) are ingredients used in traditional Chinese medicine, and have been recognized as cancer preventive and therapeutic agents. Hydrodistillation of frankincense gum resins and sandalwood heartwood to prepare essential oils is a method to extract biologically active ingredients from these plant-derived products. This study was designed to differentiate frankincense (Boswellia carterii) and sandalwood (Santalum album) induced anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic activities in cultured human bladder cancer cells. Methods: Frankincense and sandalwood essential oils-mediated cytotoxicity was studied in established human bladder cancer J82 cells and immortalized normal human bladder urothelial UROtsa cells using a colorimetric assay. Essential oils-activated gene expression and pathway activation in human bladder cancer J82 cells were identified using high density microarray and bioinformatics techniques. Results: Human bladder cancer cells were more sensitive to immortalized normal bladder cells with suppressed viability following frankincense essential oil exposure. In contrast, both cancerous and normal bladder cells responded to sandalwood essential with similar levels of cytotoxicity. Based on microarray and bioinformatics analyses, genes responsible for suppressing biological processes and apoptosis were induced in J82 cells by both essential oils. Although both frankincense and sandalwood essential oils activated common ontologies and canonical pathways leading to suppressed J82 cell viability and apoptosis, each essential oil had unique property on these cells. For example, heat shock proteins and histone core were ongologies regulated by frankincense essential oil, whereas transcription regulation and G-protein couple receptor were ontologies unique to sandalwood essential oil treatment. In addition, NRF-2 mediated oxidative stress was implicated as the primary cause of frankincense essential oil-induced J82 cell death; in contrast, DNA damage and cell cycle arrest might be attributed to sandalwood essential oil-mediated cytotoxicity. Conclusion: Based on cell biology and comprehensive gene expression analysis, our results provide a preliminary, yet focused characterization of genetic responses to frankincense and sandalwood essential oils with respect to their proposed anti-neoplastic properties. Modern biomedical technologies are powerful tools to study biological responses following treatments with traditional Chinese medicine, which always consist of complex chemical constituents. To differentiate mechanisms of frankincense and sandalwood essential oils induced cytotoxicty in bladder cancer J82 cells, time-dependent transcriptoms expression was performed in cultured cells following essential oils treatments
Project description:Background: Frankincense (Ru Xiang) and sandalwood (Tan Xiang) are ingredients used in traditional Chinese medicine, and have been recognized as cancer preventive and therapeutic agents. Hydrodistillation of frankincense gum resins and sandalwood heartwood to prepare essential oils is a method to extract biologically active ingredients from these plant-derived products. This study was designed to differentiate frankincense (Boswellia carterii) and sandalwood (Santalum album) induced anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic activities in cultured human bladder cancer cells. Methods: Frankincense and sandalwood essential oils-mediated cytotoxicity was studied in established human bladder cancer J82 cells and immortalized normal human bladder urothelial UROtsa cells using a colorimetric assay. Essential oils-activated gene expression and pathway activation in human bladder cancer J82 cells were identified using high density microarray and bioinformatics techniques. Results: Human bladder cancer cells were more sensitive to immortalized normal bladder cells with suppressed viability following frankincense essential oil exposure. In contrast, both cancerous and normal bladder cells responded to sandalwood essential with similar levels of cytotoxicity. Based on microarray and bioinformatics analyses, genes responsible for suppressing biological processes and apoptosis were induced in J82 cells by both essential oils. Although both frankincense and sandalwood essential oils activated common ontologies and canonical pathways leading to suppressed J82 cell viability and apoptosis, each essential oil had unique property on these cells. For example, heat shock proteins and histone core were ongologies regulated by frankincense essential oil, whereas transcription regulation and G-protein couple receptor were ontologies unique to sandalwood essential oil treatment. In addition, NRF-2 mediated oxidative stress was implicated as the primary cause of frankincense essential oil-induced J82 cell death; in contrast, DNA damage and cell cycle arrest might be attributed to sandalwood essential oil-mediated cytotoxicity. Conclusion: Based on cell biology and comprehensive gene expression analysis, our results provide a preliminary, yet focused characterization of genetic responses to frankincense and sandalwood essential oils with respect to their proposed anti-neoplastic properties. Modern biomedical technologies are powerful tools to study biological responses following treatments with traditional Chinese medicine, which always consist of complex chemical constituents.
Project description:Indian sandalwood (Santalum album) is an economically important plant known for its aromatic wood. This highly valued plant has also been reported as an endangered species. Despite its economic value, the genome sequence of this plant is not yet available. In the current study,we report the draft genome sequence of sandalwood generated using Illumina HiSeq1000 sequencing platform. Genome annotation was carried out using InterProScan tool and Uniprot database,which was further facilitated using in-house RNA-Seq data. Further, we carried out in-depth proteome analysis of samples derived from four tissues viz., shoot meristem, leaf, stem and fruit using high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry. Proteogenomics analysis was performed to identify novel gene models, revise the predicted gene structures and provide experimental evidence for the predicted genes. Our analysis resulted in the identification of 72,325 peptides mapping to 10,076 genes predicted in the sandalwood genome thereby validating the expression of these gene models. Additionally, this study also provides evidence for 53 novel protein coding genes and revision of 121existing gene models.