Preliminary investigation on regulating effects of different TCM treatments on transcription of the correlated genes of liver cancer in rats.

The regulating effects of TCM treatments including clearing away heat and toxic materials, promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis, and strengthening the spleen and regulating qi on the oncogene transcription were observed in the liver cancer model rats. The preliminary results indicated that the mRNA levels of H-ras N-ras and K-ras, and signal molecules correlated with the ras/MAPK signal transduction pathway were down-regulated by the different TCM treatments in varying degrees. Also, the regulating effects of the treatments on differently-displayed genes were discrepant. It is suggested that the molecular mechanisms of the TCM treatments for liver cancer was complex with different target genes.