A Novel Approach to Prevent and Restrict Early Stages of Cancer Cell Growth Using a Combination of Moringa and Sesame in a Drosophila Model

Abstract

Cancer is a highly prevalent disease with many causes but no cure; here, we examined the efficacy of the naturally anti-inflammatory moringa and sesame plants to prevent or restrict cancer cell growth in Drosophila melanogaster. In our previous work, we showed that sesame and moringa individually repressed eye tumor formation in D. melanogaster. In this work, we studied combinations of moringa and sesame at different proportions to compare their effects in preventing cancer cell growth. We studied D. melanogaster eye tumors which allowed easy detection of the phenotypes with simple microscopes. As we increased the concentration of sesame and moringa in the mixture, the cancer symptoms improved. We showed that a diet consisting of a combination of 10% sesame and 15% moringa can be used to effectively prevent visible tumor growth in the D. melanogaster eye, and the endpoints were close to those of healthy, wild-type flies. This data showed improved tumor growth compared to the treatments used individually. We extended the study to restrict early stages of cancer using these treatments. Progeny of Gal4-Ret cross at four different stages of the lifecycle were treated with experimental food and compared to control sample flies. Our study showed this combination of Moringa and Sesame treatments during the second instar or third instar larvae could restrict the cancer cells growth. Therefore, we concluded that a combination of 15% moringa and 10% sesame could prevent cancer and restrict early stages of cancer growth in this specific model of cancer using D. melanogaster.