IN VIVO ANTIMETASTATIC EFFECT OF Tessaria absinthioides AND ITS COMBINATION WITH CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC DRUGS IN BREAST CANCER XENOGRAFT MODEL

LOURDES PASCUAL; REAL SEBASTIAN; MARÍA BELÉN HAPON; CARLOS GAMARRA

San Juan

Congreso; Reuníon anual de la Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo; 2023

In Argentina, according to the Global Cancer Observatory, breast cancer was the most prevalent in 2020, representing 16.8% of the new cases and being the most frequent in women (32.1%), with the highest mortality (19.95%). This reveals the need for new treatments with improved effectiveness and reduced side effects. Biotechnological strategies such as the application of plant-derived products with beneficial properties are being studied. Our previous results demonstrated the antimetastatic potential of the aqueous extract of T. absinthioides (AETa) in a murinemelanoma model, showing its capability of inhibiting in vitro themetastatic processes of cell adhesion and migration and a significant reduction in vivo of lung metastasis. These results promote the study of AETa as a potential metastasis inhibitor in triple negative breast cancer, a highly metastatic cancer with poor prognosis. This work aims to investigate the antimetastatic effect of AETa and its combination with the chemotherapeutic agents carboplatin (CBP) and paclitaxel (PTX) in a breast cancer xenograft model. AETa was prepared by boiling 5 g of dry leaves in 100 mL of water (5% w/v) for 10 min. MDA-MB-231 cells (8 x 105 cells) were injected into the tail vein of 8-week-old female NOD scid gamma mice, that were randomly divided into 6 groups of 5 animals: control, AETa, CBP, PTX, AETa+CBP and AETa+PTX. AET was orally administered in drinking water at 15.6 mg/animal/day, whereas CBP and PTX were injected intraperitoneally at a single dose of 30 mg/kg and 5 mg/kg, respectively. Mice were sacrificed at week 10. Lungs were collected and the metastatic pulmonary nodules were counted using a binocular loupe. Results were expressed as a percentage of the control group. AETa significantly reduced the number of metastatic nodules by 22.2% vsthe control group, showing a similar effect to PTX (19.8%) while CBP did not show a significant decrease (7.6%). The combination of AET with CBP reduced the amount of metastatic tumors by 37.5%, whereas AETa+PTX produced a decrease of 20.5% (ANOVA followed by Tukey’s multiple comparisons test; p