Nh. Oberlies et al., TUMOR-CELL GROWTH-INHIBITION BY SEVERAL ANNONACEOUS ACETOGENINS IN ANIN-VITRO DISK DIFFUSION ASSAY, Cancer letters, 96(1), 1995, pp. 55-62
The cell inhibition activities of several Annonaceous acetogenins, cov
ering the three major structural classes of bisadjacent, bis-non-adjac
ent, and single tetrahydrofuran (THF) ring compounds and their respect
ive ketolactone rearrangement products, were tested in an in vitro dis
k diffusion assay against three murine (P388, PO3, and M17/Adr) and tw
o human (H8 and H125) cancerous cell lines as well as a non-cancerous
immortalized rat GI epithelial cell line (118). The results demonstrat
e a dose-dependent inhibition of cancerous cell growth, while non-canc
erous cell growth is not inhibited by the same dosages. All of the ace
togenins, irrespective of their various structural types, inhibit the
growth of adriamycin resistant tumor cells and non-resistant tumor cel
ls at the same levels of potency. These results show that the Annonace
ous acetogenins are an extremely potent class of compounds, and their
inhibition of cell growth can be selective for cancerous cells and als
o effective for drug resistant cancer cells, while exhibiting only min
imal toxicity to 'normal' non-cancerous cells.