Kamarudin Alfarizal

Monash University (Malaysia) · Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Background: The increasing number of cancer cases requires developing newer approaches to treat this disease. One approach uses natural compounds with known anticancer effects, such as tocotrienols. Many cell-based and animal-model studies found that tocotrienols possess potent anticancer activities. However, the exact molecular regulatory mechanis...

The role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in regulating cell motility in glioblastoma (GBM) remains largely unexplored as compared to other cancers. Our bioinformatic analyses of the microarray data of upregulated lncRNAs predicted the oncogenic role of LINC00221 in GBM cell motility. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) analysis confirmed that LINC00221 was u...

Glioblastoma (GBM) mesenchymal (MES) transition can be regulated by long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) via modulation of various factors (Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal (EMT) markers, biological signalling, and the extracellular matrix (ECM)). However, understanding of these mechanisms in terms of lncRNAs is largely sparse. This review systematically analys...

Simple Summary Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a deadly brain tumour with little progression in the way of improved quality of life in patients. The possible root cause for this dilemma stems from the inefficiency of traditional two-dimensional (2D) cell-based models used in evaluating potential anticancer agents. In this paper, we investigated th...

Background: The increasing number of cancer cases requires developing newer approaches to treat this disease. One approach uses natural compounds with known anticancer effects, such as tocotrienols. Many cell-based and animal-model studies found that tocotrienols possess potent anticancer activities. However, the exact molecular regulatory mechanis...

High-grade adult-type diffuse gliomas are the most common and deadliest malignant adult tumors of the central nervous system. Despite the advancements in the multimodality treatment of high-grade adult-type diffuse gliomas, the five-year survival rates still remain poor. The biggest challenge in treating high-grade adult-type diffuse gliomas is the...

Glioblastoma (GBM), a highly lethal form of adult malignant gliomas with little clinical advancement, raises the need for alternative therapeutic approaches. Lipid-soluble vitamins have gained attention in malignant brain tumors owing to their pleiotropic properties and their anti-cancer potential have been reported in a number of human GBM cell li...

Glioblastoma (GBM) remains incurable despite the overwhelming discovery of 2-dimensional (2D) cell-based potential therapeutics since the majority of them have met unsatisfactory results in animal and clinical settings. Incremental empirical evidence has laid the widespread need of transitioning 2D to 3-dimensional (3D) cultures that better mimic G...

Parkinson’s Disease (PD), a neurodegenerative disorder, is characterised by the loss of motor function and dopamine neurons. Therapeutic avenues remain a challenge due to lack of accuracy in early diagnosis, monitoring of disease progression and limited therapeutic options. Proteomic platforms have been utilised to discover biomarkers for numerous...

Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) has been identified in the regulation of cell-invasion via various cellular processes. Research on lncRNAs is however lacking in the context of Glioblastoma (GBM), which held-up identification of GBM-related lncRNAs via bioinformatic databases. This study intends to identify potential lncRNA candidates in the regulation...

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most malignant brain tumor and accounts for most adult brain tumors. Current available treatment options for GBM are multimodal, which include surgical resection, radiation, and chemotherapy. Despite the significant advances in diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, GBM remains largely resistant to treatment, with a poor m...

Despite their low incidence rate globally, high-grade gliomas (HGG) remain a fatal primary brain tumor. The recommended therapy often is incapable of resecting the tumor entirely and exclusively targeting the tumor leads to tumor recurrence and dismal prognosis. Additionally, many HGG patients are not well suited for standard therapy and instead, s...

Simple Summary Gliomas are major causes of worldwide cancer-associated deaths in children. Generally, paediatric gliomas can be classified into low-grade and high-grade gliomas. They differ significantly from adult gliomas in terms of prevalence, molecular alterations, molecular mechanisms and predominant histological types. The aims of this review...

Temozolomide (Tmz) faces the challenges of high chemoresistance and high dose leading to various side-effects. Chrysin exhibits anticancer and adjuvant effects in various cancer models. Nevertheless, chrysin’s synergistic effect with Tmz against Tmz-sensitive and Tmz-resistant human glioblastoma has never been reported. Chrysin and Tmz reduced the...

Growing evidence showed the increased prevalence of cancer incidents, particularly colorectal cancer, among type 2 diabetic mellitus patients. Antidiabetic medications such as, insulin, sulfonylureas, dipeptyl peptidase (DPP) 4 inhibitors and glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GLP-1) analogues increased the additional risk of different cance...

Despite numerous advancements in the last decade, human gliomas such as astrocytoma and glioblastoma multiforme have the worst prognoses among all cancers. Anti-psychotic drugs are commonly prescribed to treat mental disorders among cancer patients, and growing empirical evidence has revealed their antitumor, anti-metastatic, anti-angiogenic, anti-...

Despite various anticancer reports, antiproliferative and apoptosis inducing activity of citral in HCT116 and HT29 cells have never been reported. This study aimed to evaluate the cytotoxic and apoptosis inducing effects of citral in colorectal cancer cell lines. The citral-treated cells were subjected to MTT assay followed by flow cytometric Annex...

Amounting scientific evidences have revealed the antitumor, antimetastatic, antiangiogenic, antiproliferative, chemopreventive and neo-adjuvant efficacy of Prophetic Medicine in various in vitro, in vivo and clinical cancer models. Prophetic Medicine includes plants, dietary materials or spices that were used as remedy recipes and nutrition by the...

Elephantopus scaber L. (family: Asteraceae) has been traditionally utilized as a folkloric medicine and scientifically shown to exhibit anti-inflammatory activities in various in vivo inflammatory models. Given the lack of study on the effect of E. scaber in neuroinflammation, this study aimed to investigate the anti-neuroinflammatory effect and th...

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Clinacanthus nutans (Burm. f.) Lindau, a widely used medicinal plant, is extensively grown in tropical Asia and Southeast Asian countries. C. nutans, with its broad spectrum of pharmacological activities, has been traditionally used to treat cancer, inflammatory disorders, diabetes, insect bites, and skin problems,...

The ethyl acetate fraction from the seeds of Swietenia macrophylla (SMEAF) was studied for anti-inflammatory properties using lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced BV-2 microglia. SMEAF significantly attenuated the LPS-induced production of nitric oxide (NO), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF...

Curcumenol, a sesquiterpene isolated from Curcuma zedoaria is known to possess a variety of health and medicinal values which includes neuroprotection, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor and hepatoprotective activities. The current study aim is to investigate the modulatory effects of curcumenol towards the lipopolysaccharides (LPS)-induced inflammation...

(+)-catechin is a flavanol that possesses various health and medicinal values, which include neuroprotection, anti-oxidation, antitumor and antihepatitis activities. This study investigated the modulatory effects of (+)-catechin on the lipopolysaccharides (LPS)-stimulated BV-2 cells. (+)-catechin attenuated LPS-induced inducible nitric oxide syntha...

This study investigates the effect of phytochemical constituents from medicinally important plant Curcuma zedoaria (Christm.) Rosc., on hydrogen peroxide induced oxidative stress in mouse neuroblastoma-rat glioma hybridoma cells NG108-15. Phytochemical investigation of C. zedoaria rhizomes resulted in the isolation of nine sesquiterpenes (germacron...

Alpha-lipoic acid, a potent antioxidant with multifarious pharmacological benefits has been reported to be neuroprotective in several neuronal models and used to treat neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Nonetheless, conclusive mechanisms of alpha-lipoic acid for its protective effects particularly in NG108-15 cells have never been...

Background: The aetiology of neurodegenerative diseases remains vague, albeit growing empirical evidences implicate the role of microglial mediated neuroinflammation in the pathogenesis of the diseases. Mesuagenin C (MC) was found to protect NG108-15 cells against neuronal apoptosis which involved the modulation of CCL21. Therefore, we investigated...

Microglia are primary immune cells of the brain whose uncontrolled activation can lead to aberrant production of inflammatory factors that contribute to neuronal injury and progressive degeneration of neurons. Numerous empirical evidences have supported the use of LA as anti-inflammatory nutraceutical since it evokes an exclusive array of cellular...

Swietenia macrophylla King is a traditional herb used to treat various diseases including hypertension, diabetes and cancer. Previous study demonstrated its anti-tumor effect but the potential mechanisms have not been clearly defined. The current study was to further investigate the underlying mechanism of ethyl acetate fraction of S. macrophylla (...

Loranthus parasiticus Merr (L. parasiticus) is a member of Loranthaceae family and is an important medicinal plant with a long history of Chinese traditional use. L. parasiticus, also known as Sang Ji Sheng (in Chinese), benalu teh (in Malay) and baso-kisei (in Japanese), is a semiparasitic plant, which is mostly distributed in the southern and sou...

Background and objectives: α-Lipoic acid (LA), a natural dithiol compound is a powerful antioxidant that has been used to treat various neural disorders. Microglial activation has been implicated in chronic neuroinflammation leading to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. For the first time, the anti-inflammatory...

Background and objectives: Excessive microglial activation by inflammation leads to the progression of neurodegenerative diseases which results in neuronal cell death such as Alzheimer's disease. Mesuagenin C (MC) was reported to be neuroprotective against H2O2-induced apoptosis in NG108-15 cells. Therefore, the antiinflammatory effects of MC in LP...

activation that leads to chronic neuroinflammation plays a vital role in the progression of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases. Catechin or flavan-3-ol is mainly found in tea is reported to be neuroprotective. We investigated the regulation of neuroinflammation of LPS-induced neuroinflammation in BV-2, C6 and SHSY-5Y cells. Material...

Keywords : CCL21, mesuagenin C, neuronal apoptosis, neuroprotection, neuritogenesis Background : Natural products that exhibit neuroprotective and neuritogenic activities offer therapeutics efficacy for neurodegenerative diseases by virtue of their ability to protect and enhance neuroplasticity in neuronal cells. Mesuagenin C protected NG108-15 cel...

The aim of this study was to investigate the cytotoxic and apoptotic effects of Nephelium ramboutan-ake (pulasan) rind in selected human cancer cell lines. The crude ethanol extract and fractions (ethyl acetate and aqueous) of N. ramboutan-ake inhibited the growth of HT-29, HCT-116, MDA-MB-231, Ca Ski cells according to MTT assays. The N. ramboutan...

This study was aimed to isolate and evaluate neuroprotective compounds from the hexane extract of the bark of Mesua kunstleri (Clusiaceae) on H(2)O(2)-induced apoptosis in NG108-15 cells. Five 4-phenylcoumarins were isolated by using various chromatographic techniques via neuroprotective activity-guided fractionation and isolation from the active h...