Quan scorpion Although it is not included in the list of dual-use medicine and food, it has a long history as a food in the folk. , many people can not accept it. However, as a traditional Chinese herbal medicine in my country, scorpion is widely used in clinical practice.
Quan Scorpion
Quan Scorpion's official source is the dried whole of the arachnid arachnid scorpion family East Asian scorpion scorpion, which was first recorded in "Shu Bencao", acrid in taste and neutral in nature, poisonous, returns to the liver meridian, good in nature, and can be Relieving wind and relieving spasm, dredging collaterals and relieving pain, attacking poison and dispersing knot, it is the essential medicine for the treatment of convulsions and convulsions. Scrofula, etc. Quan scorpion is a medicine for the liver meridian of the Jueyin meridian of the foot. It is specialized in the liver and expelling wind, so it treats various diseases of Jueyin. According to " Materia Medica for Truth ", it is stated in the book " that the fetal wind twitches in the child, and the adult is half paralyzed, and the mouth and eyes are skewed. The language is astringent, tetany, malaria cold and heat, deafness, brings , all because of external wind and internal visitors, all of them are used. Because of its good nature, it is good for walking, dredging collaterals and relieving pain, so it is also used for rheumatism paralysis. "Yuyu Yaojie" says that the whole scorpion penetrates the tendons and penetrates the bones, dispelling dampness and eliminating wind, which is the meaning. Zhang Shouyi, a famous doctor in modern times, is good at treating wind paralysis. Those who can cure the wind are also good at walking, so the wind can be dispelled, and the dampness can be beneficial. If the wind is moving within, it should be quiet and not moving, it seems that it is not something that such a poisonous insect can try. However, the ancients have always used it to treat adults with phlegm and convulsions in children. In the case of mild turbulence and epilepsy in young children, they are all accompanied by phlegm and turbidity, which must lower qi and open phlegm. Guangu recipes mostly use scorpion tails, and the power of this worm is all in the tail, the temperament is down, and all the things in the medicine shop are soaked with salt, the salt is also moistened, which is tit for tat with the disease of qi and blood rising.If the decoction is light, three tails are used, and it is reused to four or five tails. There are also those used in pills, which can be more.
Quan scorpion is mainly produced in Henan and Shandong two provinces, the one produced in Henan is called Nanquanworm, and the one produced in Shandong is called Dongquanworm. Henan Yuzhou The Quan Scorpion has two more legs than the Quan Scorpion in other places. It is called "Ten-legged Scorpion" and "Shiquan Insect". say.
Whole scorpion
The chemical composition of scorpion
1, scorpion venom : Studies have shown that scorpion venom is mainly composed of protein and non-protein two parts, the main active component is the protein part, and the active protein is divided into different functions according to different functions Toxic protein and enzyme protein , most of the toxic proteins are polypeptide with a molecular weight of 6000~9000 Da, containing 3~4 pairs of disulfide bonds , of which 3 pairs constitute a cyclic core structure. Enzyme proteins mainly include phospholipase A, acetylcholinesterase, hyaluronidase , etc. The non-protein components are mainly lipids, organic acid and a small amount of free amino acid .
2, protein and amino acids
The protein quality of the whole scorpion protein medicinal components was 50.37%. The amino acids of the whole scorpion include 17 kinds of amino acids necessary for the human body such as aspartic acid , glutamic acid , serine and so on.
3, fat-soluble components
mainly include fatty acids such as palmitic acid, stearic acid , oleic acid, and saturated fatty acids .
4, inorganic and trace elements lower than female scorpions. In addition,
also contains polysaccharide and other ingredients.
Quan Scorpion
Quan Scorpion Pharmacological Effects
Quan Scorpion has the functions of relieving wind and relieving spasm, dredging collaterals and relieving pain, attacking poison and dispersing knots, etc. The results of modern pharmacological research also confirm that Quan Scorpion has good analgesia, sedative , anti-inflammatory Convulsions, anti-epileptic effects, while the research on the whole scorpion in anticoagulation, thrombolysis and anti-tumor is also quite in-depth.
Anti-tumor effect of scorpion
scorpion can significantly improve the phagocytic function and secretion capacity of macrophage , activate macrophages, this effect is similar to that of scorpion traditionally used for the treatment of sores and scrofula, and it is modernly used for tumors related to clinical applications. Quan scorpion can inhibit the proliferation of multiple tumor cell lines, such as gastric cancer, liver cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, cervical cancer, etc., and has a certain inhibitory effect on the growth of transplanted tumors. .
The histamine-like components contained in the whole scorpion have a certain killing effect on the gastric cancer-823 cell strain; the high, medium and low dose groups of the whole scorpion have inhibitory effects on Lewis lung cancer in mice, and the low-concentration aqueous extract and small molecule The inhibitory effect of oligopeptide is very obvious; it has a strong inhibitory effect on prostate cancer PC-3 cells in vitro, and the effect of scorpion tail is more obvious; whole scorpion can induce the apoptosis of cervical cancer cells by up-regulating the expression of Bax.
In view of the anti-tumor effect of the whole scorpion, modern pharmacology has carried out many studies on its anti-tumor mechanism, mainly in the following aspects.
1. Inducing apoptosis
Normal apoptosis is a normal physiological process in the human body, which is regulated by Bcl-2, P53 and other genes, and is a dynamic balance process that promotes and hinders apoptosis. When the apoptotic process is blocked or the overactive apoptotic process is hindered, a variety of diseases will be induced, among which cancer is one of the most representative diseases.Most cancer cells have p53 gene loss or no function, and some cancer cells produce too much Bcl-2 protein, which can make cancer cells escape the apoptosis program to achieve immortality. Whole scorpion can induce apoptosis by inducing apoptosis. process of apoptosis to achieve the purpose of anti-tumor. Breast cancer MDA-MB-231 and colorectal cancer HCT-8 cell lines were treated with scorpion venom, and it was found that cancer cells were enriched in G2/M phase and enriched in apoptosis and necrosis. The expression of Bcl-2 is down-regulated, and ROS is closely related to the apoptosis of cancer cells. The latest research also found that the high expression of P53 can block the cell cycle , so the scorpion venom can induce cell apoptosis and block the cell cycle; and Studies have shown that scorpion venom promotes the release of cytC and up-regulates the expression of caspase-9/caspase-3 protein to induce glioma cell apoptosis; scorpion venom can block AKT signaling pathway , and enhance temozolomide-induced glia in vitro Sensitivity to apoptosis of tumor U251 cells; whole scorpion aqueous extract cultured cervical cancer cells, and found that whole scorpion aqueous extract can induce apoptosis to kill cervical cancer cells by up-regulating the expression of Bax, while scorpion venom polypeptide extract (PESV) Induce apoptosis of ovarian cancer cells, block the cell cycle and make it mainly in the G0/G1 phase, by up-regulating the expression of P27 and Caspase-12, and down-regulating the expression of Survivin'"; some studies have also found that scorpion venom polypeptide extract and scorpion Toxic anticancer polypeptide can promote the apoptosis of leukemia , cholangiocarcinoma, liver cancer, bladder cancer, oral squamous cell carcinoma, and its mechanism of action is mainly related to down-regulating PI3K, p-Akt, Bcl-2 signaling proteins and up-regulating p53, caspase3 genes Expression correlation 13-18.
2, inhibition of cell proliferation
Uncontrolled proliferation of cells is one of the important physiological characteristics of cancer cells. Under normal circumstances, it is in a state of balance with apoptosis, which jointly maintains the normal number of human cells and inhibits cells through direct or indirect pathways. Proliferation is another important means of anti-tumor therapy, which also involves a variety of signaling factors and pathways. Experimental studies have found that scorpion venom can inhibit the HIF-1w/PKM2 signal transduction pathway, thereby reducing the aerobic glycolytic capacity of cells, and at the same time, it can activate the p38aMAPK signal pathway to block the cell cycle, and ultimately inhibit the proliferation of glioma cells. The results of in vitro and in vivo experiments show that scorpion venom polypeptide can inhibit the proliferation of colorectal cancer HCT116 cells by regulating the expression of negative regulators PiP3 and PTEN in the AKT signaling pathway; the effect of scorpion venom anticancer polypeptide on the proliferation of leukemia cell lines It was found that it can inhibit the cell cycle regulatory protein cyclin DI and the NF-KB signaling pathway, resulting in cell cycle arrest in G1 phase and inhibiting cell proliferation. At the same time, experimental studies have also found that it can also inhibit the proliferation of lung cancer A549 cells, mainly by inhibiting the expression of HIF-1a and PTEN to directly inhibit cell proliferation and block cell cycle; while for ovarian cancer cells and prostate cancer cells. The inhibition mechanism of proliferation is similar, mainly related to promoting the expression of cell cycle inhibition-related proteins and blocking the cell cycle. The results of Li Xiaohui et al. showed that when PESV>40μg mL-1, the inhibitory effect on the proliferation of liver cancer cells was significantly enhanced, and the proliferation of cancer cells was also inhibited by blocking the cell cycle. Zhang Weidong's research group proposed that the inhibition of sarcoma cells by PESV is related to the promotion of the expression of autophagy -related factors Beclinl and MAPILC3A and the inhibition of the expression of the tumor stem cell marker CD133.Some researchers treated three human cancer cells of lung adenocarcinoma A549, laryngeal cancer Hep-2, and breast cancer MCF-7 with whole scorpion enzymatic hydrolysate, and the results showed that the proliferation of three cancer cells was significantly inhibited.
1.3 Inhibition of angiogenesis
Cancer cells, like normal human tissue cells, cannot grow, proliferate and migrate without blood supply and nutritional support. "Since the theory, inhibiting tumor angiogenesis, that is, "starving the tumor" has always been one of the important ways to treat tumors. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), basic fibroblast growth factor ( b FGF) is highly expressed in a variety of tumors and is considered to be an important signal converter for angiogenesis, involving multiple signaling pathways such as MAPK, PI3K/Akt, etc. Several research results suggest that whole scorpion extract can inhibit liver cancer The expression of various angiogenesis-related factors such as VEGF and HPA in the tumor microenvironment , thereby inhibiting angiogenesis.
4 Regulation of immunity The body grows and proliferates indefinitely. Scientists have thus explored a new way to fight cancer, that is, blocking the tumor immune escape pathway and remobilizing the body's own immune system to attack cancer cells. Quan scorpion is one of the most commonly used anti-cancer Chinese medicines. First, its mechanism of action is diverse. It has been found that the interaction between scorpion venom and TLR4 of the TLR2 family may induce immunity by affecting activating transcription factors (NF-KB, AP-1, ERK1/2 and p38) of a series of signaling pathways. The response response can also induce the systemic release of granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), macrophage CSF (M-CSF), IL-8, and monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) to enhance cellular immunity. Scorpion toxins can also modulate immunity by affecting ion channels.
5, Inhibition of cell invasion and transfer
Scorpion venom polypeptide can not only selectively block the activation of MMP-2, thereby inhibiting the invasion of glioblastoma cells, and can cross the blood-brain barrier and tissue barrier to increase the efficacy, but also It can down-regulate the expression of PTX3 through the NF-KB and Wnt β-catenin signaling pathways, affect the proliferation of breast cancer, gastric cancer SGC-7901, and leukemia primary cells, and ultimately inhibit the invasion and metastasis of cancer cells.
6, Anticoagulation
Most tumor patients have pathological changes such as coagulation , fibrinolysis and platelet aggregation hyperactivity, which can not only make tumor cells survive in the circulation and transport, but also make the adhesion of tumor cells more stable. Thereby promoting the distant metastasis of tumors, the degree of cancer cell metastasis and invasion in tumor patients is closely related to the degree of hypercoagulability.” Scorpion venom can improve the hyperactive state of coagulation, fibrinolysis and platelet aggregation, thereby inhibiting tumor metastasis, Jia Jinqiu et al. To observe the effect of scorpion venom polypeptide extract (PESV) on the rheology of lung cancer tumor-bearing nude mice , the transplanted lung cancer-bearing nude mice were randomly divided into PESV group (subcutaneous injection of PESV) and control group (subcutaneous injection of normal saline) ), the rheological indexes in the PESV group were decreased to varying degrees. It is believed that PESV can reduce the blood viscosity of tumor-bearing nude mice, and has an obvious inhibitory effect on the tumor metastasis ability of lung cancer-bearing nude mice.
Complete scorpion
Modern clinical application
At present, there are relatively many basic researches on scorpion venom, and many researchers believe that scorpion venom has the hope of becoming , a new anticancer drug , but scorpion venom has not yet been used in clinical practice in the form of medicines , The main clinical application is the dried body of whole scorpion. In addition to the existing pharmacology research of western medicine, it is also based on the theory of "long illness enters the network, insects and ants clear the network" and "toxins fight poison" theory of Chinese medicine. In addition, "the internal wind is darkly swirling, and the liver wind is internalized" is considered to be a mechanism of cancer cell metastasis, and insect medicine belongs to the liver meridian to relieve wind. One of the theoretical bases. As a traditional Chinese medicine for relieving wind, dredging collaterals and attacking poison, Quanxi has a long history of medicinal use, and the theory of traditional Chinese medicine for modern anti-cancer treatment is also becoming more and more perfect. It is limited to scorpion venom and the active polypeptide extracted from it. The anti-cancer mechanism of the whole scorpion involves almost all aspects of the cancer pathway, and it is generally effective against human cancers, which confirms the multi-target and multi-pathway functions of traditional Chinese medicine. In the future, it is necessary to continuously improve the theoretical interpretation of the anti-cancer Chinese medicine of whole scorpion. In terms of experiments, more in-depth and meticulous research on the anti-cancer components and mechanisms of whole scorpion is needed. Compatibility, dosage, dosage form, indications, etc. of Quanxi, a traditional Chinese medicine with good curative effect, is more effective and safe to use in a hundred years.
