• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.138-144
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• 2003

Objective : Though modern medicine has made various studies in cancer treatment, the results of the treatments are not satisfactory. Considering this, Oriental medicine can be a breakthrough in treatment of cancer, and therefore, its constant research eagerly needed. According to preceding studies, Hangamjedoktang (Kangaizhidu-tang) with Hagocho appeared to be statistically significant against cancer, and therefore to seek a better medication for cancer, Holotrichia which seemed to be effective against cancer was added to the formula, and herbs which showed an anti-tumor effect in preceding studies composed Hangamyagjaebang. The efficacy of both Hangamjedoktang with Holotrichia (HJJ) and Hangamyagjaebang (Kangaiyaocaijang) (HM) was compared. Methods : To examine the anti-cancer effect of HJJ and HM, inhibitory effect on solid tumor growth in mice induced by Sarcoma-180 (s-180), change of body and organ weight in tumor bearing mice and the activity of machrophages and lymphocytes in the spleen were examined. Results : 1. In the HJJ and HM treated groups, tumor growth was markedly decreased. 2. HJJ and HM increased the activity of ALP which is produced from the splenocytes transplanted with S-180. 3. HJJ and HM increased the ACP activity of the macrophages of the mice transplanted with S-180. Conclusion : These results suggest that HJJ and HM are good candidates for new drugs for cancer therapy.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2008

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most frequent form of oral cancer and holds the eighth position in the cancer incidence ranking. OSCC patients are treated by classical therapeutic modalities consisting of surgery, radiotherapy, and/or chemotherapy. But OSCC still shows significant mortality rates. Thus, new therapeutic approaches have been investigated and the most promising one is naturally acquired agents with known anti-cancer effects. Genistein is a compound extracted from soy bean. Its anti-cancer effect on breast cancer is well established now and it is investigated whether it has similar effect on OSCC. It inhibited the growth and invasive-ness of OSCC cells in vitro, but these effects did not work in living animals in vivo. Catechin is a compound from green tea and its anti-cancer effect on OSCC is known better than other agents. Catechin showed its anti-cancer effect in vitro via induction of apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, inhibition of growth, and down-regulation of invasion/metastasis. These effects were confirmed in vivo with mouse model. Cordycepin is one of major pharmacologically important components in Cordyceps Militaris and may exert its anti-cancer effect as an adenosine receptor agonist. In recent study, it inhibited the proliferation of OSCC cells via A3 adenosine receptor. But because there is very scarce evidence on this effect, more researches are needed on this theme.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.113-117
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• 2005

Organosulfur compounds have been shown to exert an anti-cancer activity. In an attempt to develop novel chemopreventive and anti-cancer agents for liver cancer, we synthesized allylthiopyridazine derivatives. We have previously shown that allylthiopyridazine derivatives exert inhibitory effects on proliferation, invasion and migration of SK-Hep-1 hepatocarcinoma cells in vitro. The in vivo anti-tumor effect of 3-methvl-6-allylthiopy-ridazine, named as K6, was also reported. In this study, we further investigated the preclinical anti-cancer efficacy of K6 for hepatocarcinoma using nude mice xenografted with Hep-G2 hepatocellular carcinoma cells. K6(20-100 mg/kg, orally administered everyday for 30 days) markedly decreased the tumor volume of Hep-G2 cell-transplanted nude mice as evidenced by ultrasonographic and plethysmogranhic analyses. The inhibitory effect on tumor volume was lower than that exerted by doxorubicin (2 mg/kg), intravenously injected) which was used as a positive control. This study shows that K6 efficiently suppresses xenograft tumor growth, revealing K6 as apotential anti-cancer agent for suppressing in vivo progression of liver cancer. Given that hepatocarcinoma is among the most prevalent and lethal malignancies and there is no effective treatment to date, our study may contribute to the potential drug development for liver cancer.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.105-112
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• 2009

The screening of the anti-cancer activity of the chemical library provided 2-thio-4-aminopyrimidine as the initial hit. The confirmation of structure and biological effect of hit was performed by synthesis and biological evaluation. The optimization of hit was performed by derivatization of substituents while keeping the core structure. The evaluation of growth inhibitory activity was carried out using SRB assay against 6 human cancer cell lines and human fibroblast. The growth inhibitory activity of compounds showed substituent dependency and more than 5 compounds showed complete growth inhibition of cancer cell lines at 10 ${\mu}M$ concentration. Chemical library screening followed by synthetic modification provided possibility that 2-thio-4-aminopyrimidine can be used as a new scaffold for the development of anti-cancer agent.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.679-685
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• 2017

Stachys affinis tubers are known for its high content of stachyose and eaten as an edible vegetable. In this work, we assessed on the anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferation activity of a various type of extracts derived from S. affinis tubers. The n-hexane and dichloromethane fractions were showed the high cytotoxicity on the cell lines including RAW264.7 macrophages, HEK293 human kidney cell, A549 human lung cancer cell, KB human oral cancer cell, and a PC-3 human prostate cancer cell. N-butanol and water fractions were not exhibited cytotoxicity on the tested cancer cells, limited in anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activities. Nevertheless, the ethyl acetate fraction showed little harm to RAW264.7 cells but inhibited the production of nitric oxide (NO) and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) significantly. In addition, it arrests the cell growth in A549, KB, and PC-3 cell while little cytotoxicity on HEK293 cells. Consequently, these results supported that the ethyl acetate fraction of S. affinis tubers could be a potential anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer ingredient.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.487-493
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• 2014

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: D. candidum is a traditional Chinese food or medicine widely used in Asia. There has been little research into the anticancer effects of D. candidum, particularly the effects in colon cancer cells. The aim of this study was to investigate the anticancer effects of D. candidum in vitro and in vivo. MATERIALS/METHODS: The in vitro anti-cancer effects on HCT-116 colon cancer cells and in vivo anti-metastatic effects of DCME (Dendrobium canidum methanolic extract) were examined using the experimental methods of MTT assay, DAPI staining, flow cytometry analysis, RT-PCR, and Western blot analysis. RESULTS: At a concentration of 1.0 mg/mL, DCME inhibited the growth of HCT-116 cells by 84%, which was higher than at concentrations of 0.5 and 0.25 mg/mL. Chromatin condensation and formation of apoptotic bodies were observed in cancer cells cultured with DCME as well. In addition, DCME induced significant apoptosis in cancer cells by upregulation of Bax, caspase 9, and caspase 3, and downregulation of Bcl-2. Expression of genes commonly associated with inflammation, NF-${\kappa}B$, iNOS, and COX-2, was significantly downregulated by DCME. DCME also exerted an anti-metastasis effect on cancer cells as demonstrated by decreased expression of MMP genes and increased expression of TIMPs, which was confirmed by the inhibition of induced tumor metastasis in colon 26-M3.1 cells in BALB/c mice. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrated that D. candidum had a potent in vitro anti-cancer effect, induced apoptosis, exhibited anti-inflammatory activities, and exerted in vivo anti-metastatic effects.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.305-309
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• 2007

Arsenic compounds have been used to treat various diseases including cancer in oriental medicine. Arsenic trioxide ($As_2O_3,\;Trisenox^{(R)}$) has been used for the treatment of leukemia and its anti-solid tumor activity has also been reported recently. Tetra-arsenic oxide ($As_4O_6,\;TetraAs^{(R)}$) is a newly developed arsenic compound which has shown an anticancer activity in some human cancer cell lines. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the anti-gastric cancer potential of TetraAs and to search for an agent with synergistic interaction with TetraAs against human gastric cancers. We analysed anti-proliferative effect of TetraAs when given alone and in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents such as 5-FU, paclitaxel, and cisplatin in SNU-216, a human gastric cancer cell line. The $IC_{50}$ of these 4 anti-cancer drugs ranged from 5.8 nM to $7.5\;{\mu}M$ with a potency rank of order paclitaxel>TetraAs>cisplatin>5-FU. TetraAs showed 10-fold greater potency than 5-FU and cisplatin at the same effect level of $IC_{50}$. TetraAs+5-FU and TetraAs+paclitaxel showed synergistic and additive interaction, respectively. On the other hand, TetraAs with cisplatin group appeared to be strongly antagonistic. Apoptotic population was measured and compared between single and combination treatment. The apoptotic cells for the combination of TetraAs+5-FU showed significant increase compared to single TetraAs treatment. On the contrary, TetraAs+cisplatin showed less apoptotic cells compared to TetraAs or cisplatin alone treatment. Overall, our results indicate that TetraAs can be effectively combined with 5-FU or paclitaxel, but not with cisplatin for synergistic anti-cancer effect, which warrants further evaluation using in vivo models.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.44-52
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• 2015

In the present study, the substance that show anti-proliferation of cancer cells as well as anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory effect was searched. As a results, the methanol extract of Pogostemon cablin (P. cablin), is a well-known herb for traditional medicine in Korea and China for treating the digestive disorders, less of appetite, vomiting and diarrhea, inhibited the growth of various cancer cells such as A549, HepG2, MCF7 and HT29 cells. Cytotoxic effect of methanol extraction of P. cablin was excellent in A549 cells. P. cablin extract induced cell cycle arrest at G1 phase of A549 in a dose dependent manner. And it induced phosphorylation of p38 and Cdc25A and reduced expression of Cdc25A, Cdks, Cyclins and phospho-Retinoblastoma (Rb) proteins. Therefore, P. cablin extract seems to act through the p38 - Cdc25A - Cdk - Cyclin - Rb pathway in A549 cells. In addition, P. cablin extract showed anti-oxidant effect by DPPH free radical scavenging assay and anti-inflammation effect by inhibition of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced nitric oxide (NO) in RAW 264.7 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Taken together, these results suggest that P. cablin may be used as not only candidate materials for anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant, moreover, it would be possible utilized in various health functional food materials.

• Journal of Korean Traditional Oncology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.13-24
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• 2008

Objective: To evaluate the effects of Bikihaun (BKH) on angiogenesis. Method: We examined the anti-angiogenic effect of BKH in invasion assay model. We performed proliferation assay, migration assay, tube formation assay and Chicken Chorioallantoic Membrane (CAM) assay. Results: In proliferation assay, at lower dose under 125 ${\mu}g/m{\ell}$ anti-angiogenesis effect of the group treated BKH made no difference with the control group. But, at the dose of 250 ${\mu}g/m{\ell}$ or more anti-angiogenesis effect of the group treated BKH showed more effective as compared to the control group. In migration assay, BKH did not affect migration of vascular endothelial cell. In tube formation assay, at lower dose under 100 ${\mu}g/m{\ell}$ showed mild effect of anti-tube formation. But, at the dose of 1000 ${\mu}g/m{\ell}$ showed more effective anti-tube formation. In CAM assay, BKH showed anti-angiogenesis effect at the dose of 10 ${\mu}g/m{\ell}$. Conclusion: BKH has antiangiogenetic properties in vitro.

• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2014

Objectives : Many of currently used anti-cancer drugs were developed to target cell death mechanisms and had serious side effects by causing damage to normal cells. Hangambujeongsan or Kangai Fuzheng Powder was a mixture based on the traditional Chinese medicine. It had been used in the local Chinese hospitals to treat cancer patients for decades and had shown a certain level of beneficial effects without major toxic effects. But its mechanism of action had not been elucidated yet. Thus this study aimed to investigate the effects of Kangai Fuzheng Powder in an in vitro experiment. Methods : Cancer lines or RAW264.7 mouse macrophage cells were treated with Kangai Fuzheng Powder. Cell viability was measured by MTT assay, and morphological observation was also performed. Gene expression of cytokines in macrophages was determined by real-time polymerase chain reaction. Phagocytic function assay was also performed in macrophage cells. Results : Kangai Fuzheng Powder had no direct detrimental effect on cancer cells. When macrophages were co-cultured with cancer cells, Kangai Fuzheng Powder had toxic effect on cancer cells. After exposing macrophages to Kangai Fuzheng Powder, macrophages transformed into activated form and the mRNA level of tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-1beta, interleukin-6, interleukin-10 and monocyte chemotactic protein-1 was significantly enhanced. Phagocytic activity of macrophages was dramatically potentiated. Conclusions : We demonstrated that anti-cancer effect of Kangai Fuzheng Powder was related to activation of macrophages including enhanced cytokine production and phagocytic function.