THE ALOYSIA POLYSTACHYA EXTRACT REDUCES MALIGNANT TUMOR GROWTH

MILENI SOARES MACHADO; ALEJANDRA G. PALMA; MARÍA CECILIA LIRA; FRANCISCO DAMIÁN ROSA; MARÍA FERNANDA RUBIO; LEONARDO PAZ; GUIDO LENZ; ALEJANDRO J. URTREGER; MÓNICA A COSTAS

Mar del Plata

Congreso; REUNIÓN ANUAL DE SOCIEDADES DE BIOCIENCIA 2019; 2019

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Clínica

We have previously demonstrated Aloysia polystachya (AP) extract induces apoptosis and also the sensitization of human and mouse colorectal cancer cell lines to chemotherapeutic drugs in vitro. Moreover, our experiments demonstrated Cancer Stem Cells (CSC) population is a target for AP-induced cytotoxic effects. The aim of this work was to investigate the in vivo effects of AP extract, alone or combined with the chemotherapeutic drug, 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU). Therefore, male BALB/c mice, 8?12 weeks old were randomly divided into six groups. All of them were subcutaneously inoculated at the right dorsal flank with 2x106 CT26 cells. Once the tumor was detected, animals were treated twice a week (days 14, 17, 21, 24 and 28) with an intraperitoneal injection of different AP dilutions: AP1, AP2, AP3, 5-FURA (5 mg/kg) previously determined as poorly effective in vivo, AP2+5-FURA in a sub-effective dose or remained without treatment. Animals that were not inoculated with CT26 cells were used as control. Tumor size was determined twice a week. After 30 days, the mice were sacrificed. The histopathology of tumors and liver sections was performed by staining with hematoxylin and eosin. We found that while 5-FURA was not effective for inhibiting the tumor growth, its combined treatment with AP2 significantly inhibited the tumor growth in all the treated animals (p