ABSTRACT
Objectives: cancer is the second leading cause of death and has a complex etiology. Efforts are being made to target different components for its treatment. Developments in the field of molecular biology have led the researchers to target apoptotic pathway. This study has been designed to assess the apoptotic effect of the extract of withaniacoagulans on different cancer cell lines
Methodology: this study was designed to check the anticancer activity of withaniacoagulans and to compare it in different cancer cell lines
Results: the extract of withaniacoagulans proved to be equally effective in hela, vero and bhk cell lines even at concentration of 1 O[micro]g/ml
Conclusions: the extract has a potential to act as apoptotic compound. Study can be elaborated by isolating different components and assessing their role as apoptotic molecules on individual basis
ABSTRACT
Clinically nonfunctioning human pituitary adenomas [NFPAs] constitute about 25-35% of pituitary tumours. Relatively few studies have been carried out to determine the cellular origin and biology of the NFPAs. The present study was undertaken to assess the effect of' surgical removal of adenoma on peripheral adenohypophyseal hormones. In addition, the pituitary hormones have also been measured directly in the adenoma tissue following its surgical removal. The present study is based on 19 patients [16 males and 3 females], 30-50 year of age, diagnosed for NFPAs on the basis of clinical and radiological evidence. Follicle stimulating hormone [FSH] and thyroid stimulating hormone [TSH] were determined in serum before and following transsphenoidal adenomectomy. The FSH, TSH content of the excised adenoma tissue was also measured in male patients. The results demonstrate that in a subset of 4 of the 16 male patients with NFPAs the presurgical serum FSH values [45.1 +/- 0.7 mIU/ml] were markedly and significantly greater than those of the remaining 12 patients [7.9 +/- 0.7 mIU/ml] and of control subjects [8.8 +/- 0.6 mIU/ml]. Following removal of the adenoma in these 4 patients, peripheral serum FSH levels fell within the normal range. In the remaining 12 patients peripheral and mean FSH levels were within the normal range. Following removal of the adenoma in 2 female patients, serum FSH concentrations showed a marked decline of FSH levels [5.7 mIU/ml and 7.2 mIU/ ml] whereas in the remaining one patient, the FSH levels remained relatively high [34.5 mIU/ ml]. The adenoma tissue FSH content in patients with initial higher serum FSH levels, was also significantly greater than that of the other patients [21.5 +/- 2.1 vs 4.4 +/- 1.9 IU/g]. The presurgical mean serum TSH concentrations in patients with NFPA were mostly in the lower normal range and were not significantly different from the control [1.0 +/- 0.2 vs 1.5 +/- 0.4 micro IU/ml] and removal of the adenoma did not affect the serum TSH levels significantly. The TSH content of adenoma tissue was either non-detectable or in the low range as compared to the TSH content determined in control pooled pituitary tissue. The present study suggests that pituitary tumours diagnosed as NFPAs constitute a heterogenous group of adenomas with regard to their secretory activity of intact adenohypophyseal hormones. Whereas some of these adenomas activity may synthesize one or more pituitary hormones, peripheral concentrations may not be sufficient to produce overt clinical symptoms of hormone hypersecretion