{"doi":"10.3390/molecules25153515","title":"Standardized Saponin Extract from Baiye No.1 Tea (Camellia sinensis) Flowers Induced S Phase Cell Cycle Arrest and Apoptosis via AKT-MDM2-p53 Signaling Pathway in Ovarian Cancer Cells","abstract":"Ovarian cancer is considered to be one of the most serious malignant tumors in women. Natural compounds have been considered as important sources in the search for new anti-cancer agents. Saponins are characteristic components of tea (Camellia sinensis) flower and have various biological activities, including anti-tumor effects. In this study, a high purity standardized saponin extract, namely Baiye No.1 tea flower saponin (BTFS), which contained Floratheasaponin A and Floratheasaponin D, were isolated from tea (Camellia sinensis cv. Baiye 1) flowers by macroporous resin and preparative liquid chromatography. Then, the component and purity were detected by UPLC-Q-TOF/MS/MS. This high purity BTFS inhibited the proliferation of A2780/CP70 cancer cells dose-dependently, which is evidenced by the inhibition of cell viability, reduction of colony formation ability, and suppression of PCNA protein expression. Further research found BTFS induced S phase cell cycle arrest by up-regulating p21 proteins expression and down-regulating Cyclin A2, CDK2, and Cdc25A protein expression. Furthermore, BTFS caused DNA damage and activated the ATM-Chk2 signaling pathway to block cell cycle progression. Moreover, BTFS trigged both extrinsic and intrinsic apoptosis—BTFS up-regulated the expression of death receptor pathway-related proteins DR5, Fas, and FADD and increased the ratio of pro-apoptotic/anti-apoptotic proteins of the Bcl-2 family. BTFS-induced apoptosis seems to be related to the AKT-MDM2-p53 signaling pathway. In summary, our results demonstrate that BTFS has the potential to be used as a nutraceutical for the prevention and treatment of ovarian cancer.","journal":"Molecules","year":2020,"id":94892,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":37,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9539,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":472578,"name":"Lianfu Chen","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":471999,"name":"Ning Ren","orcid":"0000-0003-2104-6158","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":472000,"name":"Bo Li","orcid":"0000-0002-7294-6888","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":472001,"name":"Yuanyuan Wu","orcid":"0000-0001-8022-6736","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":305183,"name":"Gary O. Rankin","orcid":"0000-0002-5385-3512","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":376154,"name":"Yon Rojanasakul","orcid":"0000-0002-8839-6462","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":472002,"name":"Yaomin Wang","orcid":"0009-0005-2182-7407","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":305184,"name":"Yi Chen","orcid":"0000-0001-6865-9512","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":471998,"name":"Youying Tu","orcid":"0000-0002-9539-1678","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":69,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:33:00.770265Z","pmid":"32752095","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}