Goldberg Karina H, Yin Ariel C, Mupparapu Archana, Retzbach Edward P, Goldberg Gary S, Yang Catherine F
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ 08028, USA.
Department of Molecular Biology and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine, Science Center, 2 Medical Center Drive, Stratford, NJ 08084, USA.
J Tradit Complement Med. 2016 Feb 23;7(1):45-49. doi: 10.1016/j.jtcme.2016.01.005. eCollection 2017 Jan.
Skin cancer is extremely common, and melanoma causes about 80% of skin cancer deaths. In fact, melanoma kills over 50 thousand people around the world each year, and these numbers are rising. Clearly, standard treatments are not effectively treating melanoma, and alternative therapies are needed to address this problem. Hibiscus tea has been noted to have medicinal properties, including anticancer effects. Extracts from Hibiscus have been shown to inhibit the growth of a variety of cancer cells. In particular, recent studies found that polyphenols extracted from by organic solvents can inhibit melanoma cell growth. However, effects of aqueous extracts from flowers, which are commonly used to make traditional medicinal beverages, have not been examined on melanoma cells. Here, we report that aqueous flower extract contains compounds that inhibit melanoma cell growth in a dose dependent manner at concentrations that did not affect the growth of nontransformed cells. In addition, these extracts contain low molecular weight growth inhibitory compounds below 3 kD in size that combine with larger compounds to more effectively inhibit melanoma cell growth. Future work should identify these compounds, and evaluate their potential to prevent and treat melanoma and other cancers.
皮肤癌极为常见，黑色素瘤导致约80%的皮肤癌死亡。事实上，黑色素瘤每年在全球导致超过5万人死亡，且这些数字还在上升。显然，标准治疗方法无法有效治疗黑色素瘤，需要替代疗法来解决这一问题。木槿茶已被指出具有药用特性，包括抗癌作用。木槿提取物已被证明能抑制多种癌细胞的生长。特别是，最近的研究发现，通过有机溶剂从木槿中提取的多酚能抑制黑色素瘤细胞的生长。然而，常用于制作传统药用饮品的木槿花水提取物对黑色素瘤细胞的作用尚未得到研究。在此，我们报告木槿花水提取物含有能以剂量依赖方式抑制黑色素瘤细胞生长的化合物，其浓度对未转化细胞的生长无影响。此外，这些提取物含有分子量低于3kD的低分子量生长抑制化合物，它们与较大的化合物结合能更有效地抑制黑色素瘤细胞生长。未来的工作应鉴定这些化合物，并评估它们预防和治疗黑色素瘤及其他癌症的潜力。
