Lily extract shrinks pancreas, stomach tumours

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Lily extract shrinks pancreas, stomach tumours

15/9/2003 A plant extract has been found to inhibit tumour growth in laboratory

tests. It could be used to target some of the cancers that are currently most

difficult to treat, suggests the research.

Two studies published in the early online edition of Nature show that

cyclopamine, a chemical extracted from the corn lily, shrinks tumours both in

tests on mice and on human cells in vitro.

The findings back previous research demonstrating cyclopamine’s action against

cancer. A study by Dr Philip Beachy and colleagues at the John Hopkins School of

Medicine last year found that cyclopamine effectively killed cultured mouse

medulloblastoma cells and tumours implanted in animals, as well as

medulloblastoma cells extracted from human tumours. Medulloblastoma is an

aggressive brain cancer, which affects children, but so far cannot be treated.

The researchers believe that cyclopamine blocks the Hedgehog signalling pathway,

known to be critical for the growth and differentiation of cells during

embryonic development but also implicated in malignancy of tumour cells if

activated later in life.

In the new research Dr Beachy reports that high levels of the Hedgehog protein

appear to trigger tumours in a wide range of digestive tract tumours, “including

most of those originating in the oesophagus, stomach, biliary tract and

pancreas, but not in the colon”. In tests on mice, cyclopamine blocked this

protein and significantly reduced the size of tumours after 12 days of

treatment.

In a different study published in the journal, Dr Sarah Thayer and colleagues at

Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School found that hedgehog

signalling may also be an important mediator in pancreatic cancer. Again,

cyclopamine induced apoptosis of tumour cells in both in vitro and in vivo

tests.

The findings suggest that cyclopamine could be used to treat these types of

cancer, although researchers will need to carry out further tests to confirm the

role of the hedgehog pathway in human cancer.

There could also be barriers in the form of standardising sufficient quantities

of cyclopamine, extracted from the Veratrum californicum, a plant native to the

US and poisonous in its natural form.

 

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