Demonstration of the lapachol as a potential drug for reducing cancer metastasis.

Metastasis is the major process responsible for the death in cancer patients. In the search for more effective antineoplasic drugs, many substances are under investigation, among them lapachol. This study aims to examine the molecular and morphological alterations caused by lapachol treatment, as well as its effects on the intrinsic tissue invasive property of this cell line. HeLa cells were exposed to different concentrations of lapachol, and the resulting alterations on cellular protein profile, morphology and invasiveness property were studied. At 400 microg/ml, cellular viability remains unchanged, but lapachol induces alterations in the protein profile and inhibits the invasiveness of HeLa cells in CAM model. With these results, we can conclude that lapachol has a great potential of application in fighting metastasis.

HLM/OSBP2 is expressed in chronic myeloid leukemia.

Oxysterols are oxygenated derivatives of cholesterol that have been shown to influence a wide variety of cellular processes including sterol metabolism, lipid trafficking, apoptosis and more recently, cell differentiation. The oxysterol binding proteins (OSBPs) comprise a large conserved family of proteins in eukaryotes with high affinity for oxysterols, but their precise function has not been defined yet. One member of this family in humans, HLM/OSBP2 protein, has recently been reported as a potential marker for solid tumor dissemination and worse prognosis in these cases. In this study we focused on the evaluation of HLM/OSBP2 expression in malignant cell lines from different origins (blood and solid tumors) and we also evaluated its expression in chronic myeloid leukemia patients, correlating the molecular findings with clinical outcome. Our results showed that HLM/OSBP2 was expressed in 80% of the analysed CML patients, suggesting that this protein could constitute a helpful tool for disease monitoring and reinforces recent findings that HLM/OSBP2 protein could be involved in the maintenance of the undifferentiated state necessary for leukemogenesis.

Effects of perillyl alcohol in glial C6 cell line in vitro and anti-metastatic activity in chorioallantoic membrane model.

The search for new chemotherapeutic drugs has increased, especially for those that have a natural origin. The monoterpene perillyl alcohol (POH) has been shown to exert chemopreventive activity in mammary, liver, and lung tumor models. It has also been used to treat a variety of rodent cancers, including pancreatic and breast carcinomas. In vitro data suggest that it may be effective against neuroblastomas and leukemias. This work evaluates the effects of the treatment of murine glial C6 cells with perillyl alcohol. In vitro, our studies have indicated that POH inhibits proliferation of the C6 glial cell line. POH was logarithmically diluted in concentrations of 30% through 0.0003% and showed inhibition cell proliferation of 78.36% in concentration of 30%; 69.87% in concentration of 3%; and 67.04% in concentration of 0.03%. In addition, the anti-metastatic activity of POH against these cells was evaluated using chick embryos as an in vivo model. The experiments have shown anti-metastatic activity of POH when the C6 murine glial cells were exposed to a concentration of 0.3 to 0.003% POH for 2 h, prior to its inoculation in chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane model. This phenomenon shows the possible role of POH as an in vivo anti-metastatic drug.