Endocrine Abstracts

The use of herbal intervention in the treatment of tumors is widely spread in all regions of the developing world even though there are insufficient data on their possible molecular mechanism of action. Thirty percent of all cancers in women occur in the breast making it the most commonly diagnosed female cancer. The cytotoxic properties of the 80% aqueous-ethanol crude, n-hexane, chloroform, ethylacetate, detannified, and tannin fractions of Curculigo pilosa’s Rhizomes, Icacina trichantha’s leaves, Anthocleista djalonensis’s leaves, Gladiolus psittacinus’s bulbs, Tapinanthus bangwensis’s leaves, and Spilanthes ficaulis’s leaves were evaluated for tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) and TNF receptor (TNFR1) gene modulations. Following brineshrimp lethality assay, fractions of each plant (detannified Icacina trichantha, crude extract of Curculigo pilosa, hexane fraction of Spilanthes ficaulis, detannified Anthocleista djalonensis, hexane fraction of Tapinanthus bangwensis and crude extract of Gladiolus psittacinus) with the lowest LC₅₀ were selected for the gene expression study. Concentrations that are fivefold lower than the LC₅₀ of the six fractions were inoculated in triplicates into MCF-7 cells for 48 h, after which the expression of TNFα and TNFR1 genes were examined. TNFR1 gene expression was not observed in MCF-7 cell lines while TNFα expression was induced significantly (P<0.05) by the test fractions. In conclusion, the test fractions in this study do not induce apoptosis via the molecular mechanism of TNFα and TNFR1 expression but may support immunological activation due to the significant high levels of TNFα gene expression.

Reference: Thomas DB, Gao DL, Ray RM, Wang WW, Allison CJ et al. Randomized trial of breast self examination in Shanghai; final result. J Natl Cancer Inst 2002 94 (19) 1445–1457.