Antitumor effects of α‐bisabolol against pancreatic cancer

Abstract

In the present study, we investigated whether a-bisabolol, a sesquiterpene alcohol present in essential oils derived from a variety of plants, has antitumor effects against pancreatic cancer. a-Bisabolol induced a decrease in cell proliferation and viability in pancreatic cancer cell lines (KLM1, KP4, Panc1, MIA Paca2), but not in pancreatic epithelial cells (ACBRI515). a-Bisabolol treatment induced apoptosis and suppressed Akt activation in pancreatic cancer cell lines. Furthermore, a-bisabolol treatment induced the overexpression of early growth response-1 (EGR1), whereas EGR1 siRNA decreased the a-bisabolol-induced cell death of KLM1 cells. Tumor growth in both subcutaneous and peritoneal xenograft nude mouse models was significantly inhibited by intragastric administration of 1000 mg ⁄ kg of a-bisabolol, once a week for three weeks. The results indicate that a-bisabolol could be a novel therapeutic option for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. (Cancer Sci 2011; 102: 2199-2205

The antineoplastic agent α-bisabolol promotes cell death by inducing pores in mitochondria and lysosomes

“…They are agents expected to have a killing potential against cells characterized by complex and multiple mechanisms of treatment resistance such as those encompassing tissue-derivation [4,5], differentiation degree [1], proliferative kinetic and autocrine/paracrine loops [24][25][26][27] as well as defective apoptotic pathways [3,5,[28][29][30] or constitutively activated autophagic mechanisms [2,28,29]. For instance, hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells make full use of autophagy [31,32] and, not surprisingly, leukemic stem/ progenitor cells are as likely to have autophagy programs activated as inhibited.…”

“…The plant-derived sesquiterpene alcohol a-bisabolol (a-BSB) has been found to be cytotoxic against a variety of human and animal neoplastic cells, ranging from leukemia [1][2][3] to pancreatic [4] and mammary [5] cancer cells to various cancer cell lines [6][7][8][9], at dosages devoid of organ toxicity in animal models [4,5].…”

EGR-1/Bax pathway plays a role in vitamin E δ-tocotrienol-induced apoptosis in pancreatic cancer cells

“…Genistein, a component of soybeans, was noted to inhibit the growth of human pancreatic cancer (Panc-1) cells and induce the expression of EGR-1 in these cells [67]. α-Bisabolol, a sesquiterpene alcohol found in essential oils derived from a variety of plants, was found to induce EGR-1 in human pancreatic cancer cell lines (KLM1, KP4, Panc-1, and MiaPaca-2) and to inhibit the growth and viability of these cells as well as induce apoptosis [68]. Moreover, the study showed that inhibition of the α-bisabolol-induced EGR-1 expression by EGR-1 siRNA in KLM1 cells rescued these cells from α-bisabolol-induced apoptosis.…”

Functional Ingredients Analysis for the Leaves of <i>Premna ligustroides</i> Hemsl. and the Antioxidant Activity Evaluation for its Ethanol Extracts

“…For example, 1-octen-3-ol (13.87%) is an important flavour component and an effective attractant for mosquitoes (Carvalhoa et al, 2011;Laporta and Sallum, 2011). α-Bisabolo (12.96%) has antitumor effects against cancer and a significant lightening effect in the pigmented skin (Seki et al, 2011;Lee et al, 2010). α-Caryophyllene (5.58%) and caryophyllene (4.52%) show potential antimicrobial activity (Sabulal et al, 2006).…”