Scientific name: Taxaceae
Alias: yew, cypress
Genus: Taxus chinensis
History: The ancient tree species left over from Quaternary glaciers have a history of 2.5 million years on earth.
Development value: Evergreen needles and exotic red bean fruits with big cherries are rare and endangered plants left over from the 4th century glaciers. Rare in the world, it is listed as a national key protected plant. Their wood is very good, red and bright, tough and durable, and it is a precious timber tree species. Especially because it contains paclitaxel, a specific anticancer drug, it is very precious. This magical drug is the best anticancer drug in the world after adriamycin and cisplatin. It is the best-selling and hottest new anticancer drug in the international market so far, and it is also the last line of defense for patients with advanced cancer, which has high development and utilization value.
Ecological habit
Taxus chinensis is suitable for planting in north and south, and has the characteristics of shade-loving, drought-tolerant and cold-resistant. The soil PH value is required to be 5.5 ~ 7.0, which can be interplanted with other tree species or orchards, and the management is simple.
Among them, Taxus cuspidata, an ancient tree species left over from Quaternary glaciers, has survived on the earth for more than 2.5 million years with its tenacious vitality under harsh climatic conditions. It not only has developed lateral roots, lush foliage and strong germination, but also adapts to a wide range of climate, requires wide soil quality, and is resistant to pruning, cold and insect pests. But also can grow into towering trees, and some plants can even grow for thousands of years, which can be used as medicinal varieties and green varieties. In folklore, Taxus cuspidata is known as the "sacred tree of geomantic omen".
Medicinal value
Taxol, a new source of anticancer drug, is an effective and commonly used anticancer drug, but it can only be collected from the needle-like leaves of an endangered plant at present, and the demand for this drug is likely to exceed the production capacity of this tree. Recently, researchers announced at a meeting of the American Chemical Society that they had isolated this compound from hazel trees and fungi. This discovery may provide enough new sources for the drug, and may also greatly reduce its cost. Paclitaxel, also known as paclitaxel, is one of the most popular cancer drugs in the world. It is used to treat uterine cancer and breast cancer, and many breast cancer patients still take it to prevent the recurrence of cancer. Although the supply of this drug is still sufficient, the demand may increase soon: researchers are testing the efficacy of this drug for Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis and other cancers. If the drug is really effective for the above diseases, then the drug will become in short supply. Because the drug is extracted from the needles of Taxus Pacific and then processed. Taxus Pacific is an endangered plant, which grows on the Pacific northwest coast of North America. Angela Hoffman, a chemist at Portland University in Oregon, USA, has been looking for ways to increase the yield of taxol in Taxus chinensis. Unexpectedly, she found a new source of the compound in another completely unrelated research topic. She and her colleagues were studying hazel trees, trying to find out why some hazel trees were more susceptible to Fusarium wilt. The disease destroyed hazel trees in Willamette Valley, Oregon. The researchers extracted extracts from several hazel trees and purified and analyzed these samples. Hoffman found the chemical characteristics of paclitaxel in it. Hoffman and her colleagues found that the leaves, branches and fruits of hazelnut contain paclitaxel, although the content is only 10% of that of Taxus chinensis. They also found that fungi growing on hazel trees can also produce paclitaxel. David Hawke said that in the end, the discovery of fungi may be the most valuable. David Hawke is a natural product expert in a pharmaceutical company in Worcester County, Massachusetts, USA. He said that yew also contains taxol-producing fungi. Hawke stressed that if the drug can be produced in vats with fungi, "it will definitely be valuable."
The medicinal value of Taxus chinensis mainly lies in its extract-secondary metabolic derivative-paclitaxel. According to the research results of Dr. Fang (Fang-1997 graduated from Peking Union Medical College and studied under Professor Liang), paclitaxel was originally isolated from the bark of Taxus brevifolia as an anti-tumor active ingredient. It is one of the best drugs for the treatment of metastatic ovarian cancer and breast cancer, and also has obvious curative effect on lung cancer and esophageal cancer, and has obvious inhibitory effect on nephritis and parvovirus inflammation. The anti-cancer mechanism of paclitaxel is that paclitaxel can bind to trace proteins, promote their polymerization, inhibit the mitosis of cancer cells and effectively prevent the proliferation of cancer cells.
In order to reduce the damage to wild Taxus resources, people began to extract the precursor compound 10- deacetylbaccatin ⅲ from the branches and leaves of Taxus chinensis, and then semi-synthesized it to prepare medicinal taxol. Paclitaxel is a broad-spectrum and powerful anticancer drug recognized in the world at present, which has a unique anticancer mechanism.
The earliest report abroad was 197 1 extracting paclitaxel from Taxus chinensis in the United States, and 1992 was approved for clinical use by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It has been proved to be effective for a variety of cancers, especially ovarian cancer and breast cancer, with a cure rate of 33% and an effective rate of 75%.
On the other hand, on a global scale, countries around the world gradually accept the treatment methods and principles of traditional medicine (traditional medicine refers to the medical methods to protect and restore health before the emergence of modern medicine). China has a long history in traditional medicine, such as anesthesia, acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine.