Excel · study · 2026
Dietary supplementation with ursolic acid preserves skeletal muscle mass and strength in mouse models of cancer cachexia [RNA-seq]
Listed in NCBI GEO
Skeletal muscle atrophy is a devastating and defining feature of cancer cachexia that reduces quality of life, treatment tolerance, and survival, but cannot be prevented or reversed by current management strategies.
Description
Ursolic acid is a natural dietary compound that has been shown to inhibit atrophy-associated changes in skeletal muscle mRNA expression in rodents and dogs, leading to beneficial changes in skeletal muscle structure and function.
We hypothesized that dietary supplementation with ursolic acid might help support skeletal muscle mass and function during cancer. To test this hypothesis, we investigated ursolic acid's effects in five in vivo mouse models of cancer cachexia that are driven by pancreatic, colon, and lung cancer cells of mouse and human origin. We found that dietary supplementation with ursolic acid has broad-spectrum effects towards cancer-induced skeletal muscle atrophy, significantly preserving muscle mass in all five cancer cachexia models.
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Ursolic acid's positive effects on muscle mass and muscle fiber size led to significant improvements in grip strength and muscle tetanic force, persisted in the presence of chemotherapy, and were not associated with discernable changes in food intake or tumor growth. Ursolic acid appeared to generate its beneficial effects in skeletal muscle by acting directly on muscle cells, inhibiting catabolic effects of tumor-derived secreted factors, and inhibiting > 90% of cancer-induced changes in skeletal muscle mRNA expression.
These results strongly nominate ursolic acid as a promising potential nutritional approach for supporting muscle mass and function in individuals with cancer.
Links
Get the data
- GEO FTP directory ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/series/GSE325nnn/GSE325158 ↗
download · from NCBI GEO
Where it is published
- GEO accession page ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE325158 ↗
landing page · from NCBI GEO
Documentation and papers
- PRJNA1438730 ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA1438730 ↗
project · from NCBI GEO
- PubMed 42117587 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42117587 ↗
publication · from NCBI GEO
Topics
- Stated by source
- Expression profiling by high throughput sequencing · Mus musculus
- From keywords
- Life Sciences
- Inferred from text
- Cancer 75% · RNA sequencing 65%
Provenance · 1 source records, 9 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| NCBI GEO | GSE325158 | 11 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| access_level | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[disease].local:disease:cancer | enrichment · NCBI GEO | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (75%) |
| concepts[field].local:field:life-sciences | mapping · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[method].geo_series_type:expression-profiling-by-high-throughput-sequencing | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | /gdstype |
| concepts[modality].local:modality:rna-seq | enrichment · NCBI GEO | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (65%) |
| concepts[organism].NCBITaxon:10090 | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | /taxon |
| description | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | /summary |
| publication_date | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | /title |