Biochemistry & Pharmacology: Open Access
Open Access
ISSN: 2167-0501
ISSN: 2167-0501
Shamee Bhattacharjee
Accepted Abstracts: Biochem & Pharmacol
The toxicity and cost associated with existing medicines has led to a renewed interest in the scientific community to harness the therapeutic potential of natural products including fruits, vegetables and spices. Although dubbed as ?minor dietary ingredients?, spices nevertheless, have been shown to be rich and phenolic constituents. Moreover, many epidemiological and preclinical studies have associated consumption of spices with multiple anticancer and cardiovascular protective activities. These facts have prompted us to test the effect of spices as well as their active components against oxidative stress, cancer and angiogenesis in both in vitro and in vivo models. We have used cumin extract against AOM induced colon carcinogenesis in Swiss albino mice and found that cumin extract was able to reduce the incidence of colonic aberrant crypt foci to a significant extent. Cumin was also able to reduce the expression of pro-inflammatory enzymes such as COX-2 and iNOS in the colonic tissue. We also have tested the effect of various spices and their active ingredients against a solid transplantable tumor model and have obtained interesting leads. Cinnamon extract, linalool (active ingredient of coriander), anethol (active ingredient of anise) all were able to reduce tumor volume to a significant extent. In one study, we have also shown that cinnamic acid (active ingredient of Chinese cinnamon), was able to ameliorate the toxicity induced by the conventional chemotherapeutic agent, cyclophosphamide. Most notably, cinnamic acid was able to restore the bone marrow cell count almost to normal levels thus negating the myelosuppressive effect of cyclophosphamide. Results from in vitro studies are also quite encouraging. We have tested the effect of spice principles such as, capcaicin (chilli), diosgenin (fenugreek), 1, 8-cineole (cardamom), etc., on human lung cancer, breast cancer, gastric cancer and leukaemic cell lines and found that these spice principles were able to reduce cell proliferation and induce apoptosis in the cancer cells. Moreover, we are also elucidating the molecular mechanism of action of these phytochemicals and have identified Nrf-2 to be a target for many of them. Also, capsaicin was able to control the levels of TGF beta and linalool that of VEGF. Although experimental evidences do definitely point towards the health benefits of these phytochemicals, but still a long way to go before these minor dietary ingredients make it upto the clinical trials.