“In vivo” and “in vitro” activity of Larrea divaricata Cav. on EL-4 cells.

DAVICINO ROBERTO; ROSARIO ALONSO; CLAUDIA ANESINI

HUMAN EXP. TOXICOL.

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD

Lugar: Atlanta; Año: 2011 vol. 30 p. 965 - 971

0960-3271

Larrea divaricata is a plant widely used in folk medicine in Argentina. It has beendemonstrated that an aqueous extract of L. divaricata possess a biphasic effect on cellproliferation, at low concentrations exerts an stimulatory action and at highconcentrations exerts anti-proliferative effects upon the T lymphoma BW 5147,therefore, we propose in this paper to test the effect of the extract “in vitro” and “invivo” in another T-cell lymphoma named EL-4. It was analyzed “in vitro” cellproliferation, by tritiated thymidine uptake and the effect of the extract on tumorsinduced in mice analyzing tumor progression and survival.The results showed that the aqueous extract induced the proliferation of tumor cells atall the concentrations studied. The results “in vivo” showed that the aqueous extractstimulated significantly the size of tumors and that untreated mice lived longer thanthose treated. It is important to note that it should be very careful in the use of plantextracts. Consequently, before using a plant extract specific scientific studies must beundertaken on different models to certificate therapeutic and adverse effects. Moreover,it can be said that L. divaricata has a specific anti-tumor mechanism of actiondepending of the targets.