ancient remedy? An extract of wormwood plant kills breast cancer cells in a test tube.
Medieval as it may seem, scientists are testing a recipe of absinthe and iron on breast cancer cells, and so far the results are encouraging. In a new study, researchers report that artemisinin - a derivative of the wormwood plant - kills breast cancer cells enriched iron, but does not harm many healthy ones. destructive properties of artemisinin are triggered by above normal levels of iron in the cancer cells.
Many experiments have shown that artemisinin turns deadly in the presence of iron. Asia and Africa, artemisinin tablets are widely and in many cases successfully used to treat malaria, because the parasite has a high concentration of iron. Cancer cells can also be rich in iron because they often absorb the mineral to facilitate cell division. The cells provide an iron supplement with transferrin receptors, special reception points that channel the ore in the cell. Although normal cells also have transferrin receptors, cancer may have many more.
To test the effect of artemisinin on breast cancer cells, bioengineers Henry Lai and Narendra Singh of the University of Washington, Seattle, enriched separate normal breast cells and cancerous ones resistant to radiation with holotransferrin, a compound normally found in the body that transports iron to the cells. Then the team measured the cells with artemisinin. As reports in the November issue of Life Sciences 16 pairs, almost all cancer cells exposed to Artemisinin holotransferrin and died within 16 hours. The compounds killed just some normal cells. Lai believes that because of a breast cancer cell contains five to 15 more receptors than normal, it absorbs iron more easily and thus more sensitive to artemisinin attack.
"It looks very promising," said Gary Poser, an organic chemist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland Yet he adds:.. "Other researchers need to replicate these findings" The next step, as the adhesive, is to treat a mixture of normal and cancer cells, instead of separating the two. Lai and others are also interested in the effect of artemisinin on other cancers.
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