Angiogenesis and anti-angiogenesis activity of Chinese medicinal herbal extracts

Angiogenesis and anti-angiogenesis activity of Chinese medicinal herbal extracts

The aqueous extracts of 24 herbs traditionally used as curing ischaemic heart disease in clinic in China were screened for their in vitro angiogenic activity, another twenty-four traditionally used as anti-tumor or anti-inflammatory remedies in China were screened for their in vitro anti-angiogenic activity. The activity of angiogenesis was determined by quantitation of vessels on chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) model and cell proliferation of cultured bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs). Among the herbal extracts examined, the aqueous extracts of Epimedium sagittatum (yin yang huo), Trichosanthes kirilowii (tian hua fen) and Dalbergia odorifera (jiang xiang) showed the strong angiogenetic activity both in CAM and BAECs models; and the aqueous extracts of Berberis paraspecta (xiang hao), Catharanthus roseus (hong hua), Coptis chinensis (huang lian), Taxus chinensis (pu gong ying), Scutellaria baicalensis (huang qin), Polygonum cuspidatum (hu zhang) and Scrophularia ningpoensis (xuan shen) elicited significant inhibition at a concentration of 1g dry herb /ml.
Wang, S., Zheng, Z., Weng, Y., Yu, Y., Zhang, D., Fan, W., Dai, R. & Hu, Z. Life Sciences. Volume 74, Issue 20, 2 April 2004, Pp. 2467-78. doi:10.1016/j.lfs.2003.03.005