Abstract
Dandelion extracts have been studied extensively in recent years for its anti-depressant and anti-inflammatory activity. Recent work from our lab, with in-vitro systems, shows the anti-cancer potential of an aqueous dandelion root extract (DRE) in several cancer cell models, with no toxicity to non-cancer cells. In this study, we examined the cancer cell-killing effectiveness of an aqueous DRE in colon cancer cell models. Aqueous DRE induced programmed cell death (PCD) selectively in > 95% of colon cancer cells, irrespective of their p53 status, by 48 hours of treatment. The anti-cancer efficacy of this extract was confirmed in in-vivo studies, as the oral administration of DRE retarded the growth of human colon xenograft models by more than 90%. We found the activation of multiple death pathways in cancer cells by DRE treatment, as revealed by gene expression analyses showing the expression of genes implicated in programmed cell death. Phytochemical analyses of the extract showed complex multi-component composition of the DRE, including some known bioactive phytochemicals such as α-amyrin, β-amyrin, lupeol and taraxasterol. This suggested that this natural extract could engage and effectively target multiple vulnerabilities of cancer cells. Therefore, DRE could be a non-toxic and effective anti-cancer alternative, instrumental for reducing the occurrence of cancer cells drug-resistance.
Highlights
The increases in the world’s aging population, as well as the adoption of cancer-causing behaviors, are the major contributors to a global escalation of different forms of cancers
We compared the efficacy of dandelion root extract (DRE) to the currently utilized colon cancer chemotherapy, FOLFOX (5-fluorouracil, Folinic Acid and Oxaliplatin)
It was observed that the FOLFOX combination did not have a selective effect to colorectal cancer cells, as the normal colon mucosal epithelial cells were affected at the same doses (Figure 1A)
Summary
The increases in the world’s aging population, as well as the adoption of cancer-causing behaviors, are the major contributors to a global escalation of different forms of cancers. Natural health products (NHPs) and natural products (NPs) have been essential in the development of many drugs, with over 75% of the currently available chemotherapies having been derived from natural sources (plants, microbes and marine sources), with a common example being paclitaxel [3]. These NHPs have been used in various traditional medicines and recent studies on the use of the NHPs for specific diseases yield some scientific validation for their application [4, 5]. Even with all the incoming evidence, herbal drugs and other NHPs and NPs are usually shunned during systemic chemotherapy www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget because of a possible herb-drug interaction that might enhance chemotherapy-related toxicity [6, 7]
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