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©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Feb 14, 2026; 32(6): 113529
Published online Feb 14, 2026. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v32.i6.113529
Published online Feb 14, 2026. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v32.i6.113529
Synergistic antitumor effect of oroxylin A and donafenib in hepatocellular carcinoma through tumor protein p53 signaling pathway activation
Mei-Yuan Zhang, Intensive Care Unit, International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine/Shanghai Key Laboratory of Embryo Original Disease, Shanghai Municipal Key Clinical Specialty, Shanghai 201499, China
Rui-Qian Sun, Qi Min, Yu-Qi Zhu, Shu-Kui Qin, Department of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Clinical Medicine, Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, Jiangsu Province, China
Qing-Long Guo, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Intervention, State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Drug Design and Optimization, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 210018, Jiangsu Province, China
Co-corresponding authors: Mei-Yuan Zhang and Qing-Long Guo.
Author contributions: Zhang MY is responsible for initiating the research, searched data, organized results, and led manuscript drafting; Qin SK and Guo QL formulated the research scheme and provided key guidance on ideas, shaping the study’s framework; Min Q screened valid data from extensive information to ensure analysis reliability; Sun RQ sorted collected data for completeness and standardization; Zhu YQ conducted in-depth statistical analysis to extract conclusions. Zhang MY and Guo QL are co-corresponding authors and contributed equally to this work, including design of the study, acquiring and analyzing data from experiments, and writing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: The study was approved by the Animal Ethics Committee of International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine (Approval No. 22-12-22).
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Data sharing statement: All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Mei-Yuan Zhang, Intensive Care Unit, International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine/Shanghai Key Laboratory of Embryo Original Disease, Shanghai Municipal Key Clinical Specialty, No. 1567 Jinqian Road, Fengxian District, Shanghai 201499, China. zhangmeiyuan1972@163.com
Received: September 16, 2025
Revised: October 31, 2025
Accepted: December 11, 2025
Published online: February 14, 2026
Processing time: 138 Days and 22.9 Hours
Revised: October 31, 2025
Accepted: December 11, 2025
Published online: February 14, 2026
Processing time: 138 Days and 22.9 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This study demonstrates that the combination of oroxylin A and donafenib exerts a potent synergistic antitumor effect against hepatocellular carcinoma in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, this synergy is achieved through the convergent activation of the tumor-suppressive tumor protein p53 signaling pathway. This work provides a novel and effective therapeutic strategy for hepatocellular carcinoma.