Antitumour activity of Emblica officinalis
Introduction
In the recent years, there have been substantial increase in the knowledge of cell cycle regulations especially cyclindependent kinases and their role as cell cycle check points. The involvement of cell cycle regulations in malignant cancers where the cellular regulations have been lost, has resulted in looking for specific inhibitors of cell cycle (Pines, 1995). Cdc2 Kinase a cyclin dependent kinase has been shown to be involved in G2/M transition during cell division while cdc 25 phosphatase control P34 cdc2/cyclin B activation. Increased expression of cyclin dependent kinases has been reported in neoplastic state (Murray and Hunt, 1993). Several synthetic and natural compounds are found to be inhibitors of these enzymes (Baratte et al., 1992) which are ideal targets to control cell proliferation.
Emblica officinalis (E.O) (syn. Phyllanthus emblica L.) (Eupherbiacase is used therapeutically in Indian system of medicine. Fruits of E.O are used for the treatment of a number of diseases (Nadkarni, 1952, Chopra et al., 1958) and is a constituent of many hepatoprotective formulations available (Antarkar et al., 1980, De et al., 1993). It is an antibacterial (Godbole and Pendse, 1960) and antiinflammatory agent (Asmawi et al., 1993) and modifies metal induced clastogenic effects (Dhir et al., 1990).
Chyavanprash, a drug preparation in which E.O is a major component is widely used as a health tonic. It is claimed to reduce aging and age-related ailments (Ojha, 1988). Preparation of chyavanaprash involves making of decoction from 35 herbs, of which many are known immunomodulatory and antioxidants and made into a past with brown sugar and taste with species. Details of the composition and mode of preparation of CHY are given below. Both E.O and chyavanaprash, were shown to be potent free radical scavenging agents (Jeena and Kuttan, 1995), thereby preventing carcinogenesis and mutagenesis (Jeena et al., 1997, Jeena et al., 1999). Present study evaluates the antitumour activity of E.O and chyavanaprash in vitro and in vivo models and an attempt has been made to determine the mechanism of action especially on cell cycle regulation.
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Materials and methods
Cell lines, Daltons lymphoma ascites cells (DLA) and Ehrlich ascites cells (EAC) were originally obtained from Cancer Institute, Madras and maintained as ascites tumours in Swiss albino mice.
L-929 cells were obtained from National Cell Science Centre, Pune. Minimum Essential Medium (MEM) and trypsin were purchased from Hi-media Laboratories Pvt. Ltd., Bombay. Cells were maintained in minimum essential medium with 10% goat serum and antibiotics.
Animals: Swiss albino mice (20–25 g) were obtained
Cytotoxicity and ascites tumour reducing activity of E.O and chyavanaprash
E.O extract did not produce any cytotoxicity to DLA or Ehrlich ascites cells in vitro upto a concentration of 500 μg/ml. (data not shown) at an incubation period of 3 h. Cytotoxicity of E.O extract to L929 cells culture is shown in Table 1. Extract showed a dose dependent inhibition of the growth of L929 cells. Concentration needed for 50% inhibition of growth of L929 cells was found to be 16.5 μg/ml.
Effect of E.O and chyavanaprash on ascites tumour is shown in Table 2. All the control animals
Discussion
The results of the present study indicated that E.O extract could inhibit the growth of L 929 cells significantly in culture. E.O extract significantly reduced solid tumours induced by DLA cells while having only a moderate effect on ascites tumour. Chyavanaprash could reduce both ascites and solid tumours induced by DLA cells significantly. Both E.O and chyavanaprash did not have any effect on EAC cells induced tumours. Although concentration needed for the tumour regression was high compared
Composition and mode of preparation of chyavanprash
1 Desmodium gangeticum 2 Pseudarthria viscida 3 Solanum indicum 4 Aerva lanata 5 Tribulus terrestris 6 Gmelina arborea 7 Aggle marmelos 8 Bignonia coiais 9 Eclipta prostrata 10 Premna herbacea 11 Sida acuta 12 Cyperus rotundus 13 Maiaxis acuminata 14 Kaempferia rotunda 15 Aylosia goensis 16 Vigna trilobata 17 Piper longum 18 Polygonatum cirrhifolium 19 Phyllanthus firaternus 20 Elettaria cardamomum 21 Holostemma annulare 22 Chukrasla tabularis 23 Vitis vineferae 24 Inula raemose 25 Santalum album 26 Kaempferie galange 27 Boerhavie diffuse 28
Acknowledgements
We are extremely thankful to Laurent Meijer for doing assays on cell cycle inhibitors. This work is financed by a grant from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi.
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