Dipartimento di Patologia generale, Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli, Napoli, Italy.
Cell Prolif. 2012 Feb;45(1):22-31. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2184.2011.00797.x. Epub 2011 Dec 16.
Curative properties of medicinal plants such as Psidium guajava L. (Myrtaceae) have often been indicated by epidemiological studies on populations in which these fruits are consumed daily. However, complete characterization of the active principles responsible for this ability has never been performed. Here, we have characterized P. guajava's anti-cancer potential and identified the parts of the fruit involved in its anti-neoplastic action.
We studied morphology of our cells, cell cycle characteristics and apoptosis and performed immunostaining, differentiation and western blot analyses.
We report that the P. guajava extract exerted anti-cancer control on both haematological and solid neoplasias. P. guajava extract's anti-tumour properties were found to be tightly bound to induction of apoptosis and differentiation. Use of ex vivo myeloid leukaemia blasts corroborated that P. guajava was able to induce cell death but did not exhibit anti-cancer effects on all malignant cells investigated, indicating selective activity against certain types of tumour. Analyses of P. guajava pulp, peel and seeds identified the pulp as being the most relevant component for causing cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, whereas peel was responsible for causing cell differentiation. P. guajava itself and its pulp-derived extract were found to induce apoptosis accompanied by caspase activation and p16, p21, Fas ligand (FASL TNF super-family, member 6), Bcl-2-associated agonist of cell death (BAD) and tumour necrosis factor receptor super-family, member 10b (DR5), overexpression.
Our findings showed that P. guajava L. extract was able to exert anti-cancer activity on cultures in vitro and ex vivo, supporting the hypothesis of its anti malignant pro-apoptotic modulation.
番石榴（桃金娘科）等药用植物的治疗特性经常通过对日常食用这些水果的人群进行流行病学研究来表明。然而，对于负责这种能力的活性成分尚未进行完整的特征描述。在这里，我们对番石榴的抗癌潜力进行了特征描述，并确定了其抗肿瘤作用所涉及的水果部分。
我们研究了细胞形态、细胞周期特征和细胞凋亡，并进行了免疫染色、分化和 Western blot 分析。
我们报告称，番石榴提取物对血液系统和实体瘤均具有抗癌控制作用。番石榴提取物的抗肿瘤特性与诱导细胞凋亡和分化紧密相关。使用体外髓性白血病母细胞证实，番石榴能够诱导细胞死亡，但对所有研究的恶性细胞并不表现出抗癌作用，表明其对某些类型的肿瘤具有选择性活性。对番石榴果肉、果皮和种子的分析表明，果肉是导致细胞周期停滞和凋亡的最相关成分，而果皮则负责导致细胞分化。番石榴本身及其果肉衍生提取物被发现可诱导伴随半胱天冬酶激活和 p16、p21、Fas 配体（FASL 肿瘤坏死因子超家族成员 6）、Bcl-2 相关细胞死亡激动剂（BAD）和肿瘤坏死因子受体超家族成员 10b（DR5）的细胞凋亡，过表达。
我们的研究结果表明，番石榴提取物能够在体外和体外培养物中发挥抗癌活性，支持其对恶性前凋亡调节的假说。
