The Screening of Anticarcinogenic Ingredients in Tea-Polyphenols

Abstract

Abstract A batch of short-term tests were used to screen the anticarcinogenic activities of Chinese green tea water extract (WET), tea polyphenols (TP), and tea catechins (EGCG, ECG, EGC, EC). In V79 cell forward gene mutation and V79 cell cytokinesis-block micronuclei test, all the samples showed significant inhibitory effects to mitomycin C-induced mutagenicity with strong dose-response relationship. Among the four catechins tested, ECG and EGCG were the most effective. V79 cell metabolic cooperation test was used to test the effects on the promotion activity of TPA. The inhibitory effects of individual catechins were much stronger than WET and TP, particularly EGCG and ECG. The effects of EGCG and ECG on the initiation and promotion phase were confirmed in BALB/C 3T3 cell transformation test. In addition, the above samples showed non-specific inhibitory effects on Hela cell growth in soft agar, which was used as an indicator of cell proliferation. The effects of catechins in the short-term tests were a...