Skip to main content
PMC home page
Springer Nature - PMC COVID-19 Collection logoLink to Springer Nature - PMC COVID-19 Collection
editorial
. 2019 Mar 1;62(3):285–287. doi: 10.1007/s11427-019-9513-y

From herbal small RNAs to one medicine

Chao Ji 1, Skirmantas Kriaucionis 2, Benedikt M Kessler 3, Chengyu Jiang 4,✉
PMCID: PMC7089335  PMID: 30863963

The content is available as a PDF (250.8 KB).

Footnotes

Biographical sketch

Chengyu Jiang is a professor and Executive Vice Dean of School of Basic Medicine at Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. She obtained her B.S. from University of Science and Technology of China and Ph.D. from Brown University followed by postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital, affiliated to Harvard Medical School before joining PUMC/CAMS in 2003. Her research is to elucidate molecular pathogenesis of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome induced by RNA viruses such as SARS-CoV, Avian and Swine Influenza, and Ebola. Her group has also studied molecular mechanism of lung fibrosis, psychiatry and cancer. She has proposed a number of repurposing drugs after elucidation of disease molecular targets. Her recent studies are focused on herbal small RNAs as functional components of medicine. She published extensively in peer-reviewed journals including Nature, Nature Medicine, Molecular Psychiatry, Cell Research, and Nature Communications. She is also an inventor of a number of international patents. Some of the patents are exclusively licensed to top 5 international pharmaceutical companies. She received numerous honors including “Cheung Kong” Scholar, the Young Woman Scientist of China, and National Outstanding Young Award fund.

References

  1. Chin A.R., Fong M.Y., Somlo G., Wu J., Swiderski P., Wu X., Wang S.E. Cross-kingdom inhibition of breast cancer growth by plant miR159. Cell Res. 2016;26:217–228. doi: 10.1038/cr.2016.13. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Dickinson B., Zhang Y., Petrick J.S., Heck G., Ivashuta S., Marshall W.S. Lack of detectable oral bioavailability of plant microRNAs after feeding in mice. Nat Biotechnol. 2013;31:965–967. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2737. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Du J., Liang Z., Xu J., Zhao Y., Li X., Zhang Y., Zhao D., Chen R., Liu Y., Joshi T., et al. Plant-derived phosphocholine facilitates cellular uptake of anti-pulmonary fibrotic HJT-sRNA-m7. Sci China Life Sci. 2019;62:309–320. doi: 10.1007/s11427-017-9026-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Huang F., Du J., Liang Z., Xu Z., Xu J., Zhao Y., Lin Y., Mei S., He Q., Zhu J., et al. Large-scale analysis of small RNAs derived from traditional Chinese herbs in human tissues. Sci China Life Sci. 2019;62:321–332. doi: 10.1007/s11427-018-9323-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Khvorova A., Watts J.K. The chemical evolution of oligonucleotide therapies of clinical utility. Nat Biotechnol. 2017;35:238–248. doi: 10.1038/nbt.3765. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Li X., Liang Z., Du J., Wang Z., Mei S., Li Z., Zhao Y., Zhao D., Ma Y., Ye J., et al. Herbal decoctosome is a novel form of medicine. Sci China Life Sci. 2019;62:333–348. doi: 10.1007/s11427-018-9508-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Majlessi M., Nelson N.C., Becker M.M. Advantages of 2′-Omethyl oligoribonucleotide probes for detecting RNA targets. Nucleic Acids Res. 1998;26:2224–2229. doi: 10.1093/nar/26.9.2224. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Xin T., Zhang Y., Pu X., Gao R., Xu Z., Song J. Trends in herbgenomics. Sci China Life Sci. 2018;62:288–308. doi: 10.1007/s11427-018-9352-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Yu B., Yang Z., Li J., Minakhina S., Yang M., Padgett R.W., Steward R., Chen X. Methylation as a crucial step in plant microRNA biogenesis. Science. 2005;307:932–935. doi: 10.1126/science.1107130. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Zhang L., Hou D., Chen X., Li D., Zhu L., Zhang Y., Li J., Bian Z., Liang X., Cai X., et al. Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA. Cell Res. 2012;22:107–126. doi: 10.1038/cr.2011.158. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Zhang W., Li X., Ma L., Urrehman U., Bao X., Zhang Y., Zhang C.Y., Hou D., Zhou Z. Identification of microRNA-like RNAs in Ophiocordyceps sinensis. Sci China Life Sci. 2018;62:349–356. doi: 10.1007/s11427-017-9277-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Zhu K., Liu M., Fu Z., Zhou Z., Kong Y., Liang H., Lin Z., Luo J., Zheng H., Wan P., et al. Plant microRNAs in larval food regulate honeybee caste development. PLoS Genet. 2017;13:e1006946. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1006946. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Science China. Life Sciences are provided here courtesy of Nature Publishing Group

RESOURCES