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Evaluating Medicinal Plants for Anticancer Activity

Plants have been used for medical purposes since the beginning of human history and are the basis of modern medicine. Most chemotherapeutic drugs for cancer treatment are molecules identified and isolated from plants or their synthetic derivatives. Our hypothesis was that whole plant extracts select...

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Autores principales: Solowey, Elisha, Lichtenstein, Michal, Sallon, Sarah, Paavilainen, Helena, Solowey, Elaine, Lorberboum-Galski, Haya
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4248331/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25478599
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/721402
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author Solowey, Elisha
Lichtenstein, Michal
Sallon, Sarah
Paavilainen, Helena
Solowey, Elaine
Lorberboum-Galski, Haya
author_facet Solowey, Elisha
Lichtenstein, Michal
Sallon, Sarah
Paavilainen, Helena
Solowey, Elaine
Lorberboum-Galski, Haya
author_sort Solowey, Elisha
collection PubMed
description Plants have been used for medical purposes since the beginning of human history and are the basis of modern medicine. Most chemotherapeutic drugs for cancer treatment are molecules identified and isolated from plants or their synthetic derivatives. Our hypothesis was that whole plant extracts selected according to ethnobotanical sources of historical use might contain multiple molecules with antitumor activities that could be very effective in killing human cancer cells. This study examined the effects of three whole plant extracts (ethanol extraction) on human tumor cells. The extracts were from Urtica membranacea (Urticaceae), Artemesia monosperma (Asteraceae), and Origanum dayi post (Labiatae). All three plant extracts exhibited dose- and time-dependent killing capabilities in various human derived tumor cell lines and primary cultures established from patients' biopsies. The killing activity was specific toward tumor cells, as the plant extracts had no effect on primary cultures of healthy human cells. Cell death caused by the whole plant extracts is via apoptosis. Plant extract 5 (Urtica membranacea) showed particularly strong anticancer capabilities since it inhibited actual tumor progression in a breast adenocarcinoma mouse model. Our results suggest that whole plant extracts are promising anticancer reagents.
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spelling pubmed-42483312014-12-04 Evaluating Medicinal Plants for Anticancer Activity Solowey, Elisha Lichtenstein, Michal Sallon, Sarah Paavilainen, Helena Solowey, Elaine Lorberboum-Galski, Haya ScientificWorldJournal Research Article Plants have been used for medical purposes since the beginning of human history and are the basis of modern medicine. Most chemotherapeutic drugs for cancer treatment are molecules identified and isolated from plants or their synthetic derivatives. Our hypothesis was that whole plant extracts selected according to ethnobotanical sources of historical use might contain multiple molecules with antitumor activities that could be very effective in killing human cancer cells. This study examined the effects of three whole plant extracts (ethanol extraction) on human tumor cells. The extracts were from Urtica membranacea (Urticaceae), Artemesia monosperma (Asteraceae), and Origanum dayi post (Labiatae). All three plant extracts exhibited dose- and time-dependent killing capabilities in various human derived tumor cell lines and primary cultures established from patients' biopsies. The killing activity was specific toward tumor cells, as the plant extracts had no effect on primary cultures of healthy human cells. Cell death caused by the whole plant extracts is via apoptosis. Plant extract 5 (Urtica membranacea) showed particularly strong anticancer capabilities since it inhibited actual tumor progression in a breast adenocarcinoma mouse model. Our results suggest that whole plant extracts are promising anticancer reagents. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014 2014-11-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4248331/ /pubmed/25478599 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/721402 Text en Copyright © 2014 Elisha Solowey et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Solowey, Elisha
Lichtenstein, Michal
Sallon, Sarah
Paavilainen, Helena
Solowey, Elaine
Lorberboum-Galski, Haya
Evaluating Medicinal Plants for Anticancer Activity
title Evaluating Medicinal Plants for Anticancer Activity
title_full Evaluating Medicinal Plants for Anticancer Activity
title_fullStr Evaluating Medicinal Plants for Anticancer Activity
title_full_unstemmed Evaluating Medicinal Plants for Anticancer Activity
title_short Evaluating Medicinal Plants for Anticancer Activity
title_sort evaluating medicinal plants for anticancer activity
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4248331/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25478599
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/721402
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