Abstract
Purpose
Malignant neoplasms arising in the brain and central nervous system have a poor prognosis and present with symptoms such as headache, epileptic seizures, and paralysis of the arms and legs. Treatment of glioma, the most frequent primary brain tumor, is based on surgical removal of the tumor, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. However, since gliomas grow invasively, surgical removal of the entire tumor is considered difficult. In addition, the standard treatment, temozolomide, possesses the problem of resistance. Therefore, the risk of recurrence is high, and the development of noble therapeutic agents for Glioma is required. We have screened for compounds with anti-tumor activity against Glioma from our natural compound library and focused on ginger extract, Compound A. In this study, we investigated the effect of Compound A on Glioma cell lines.
Methods and Results
To evaluate the antitumor activity of Compound A on Glioma in vitro , MTT assay was performed. Human glioma cell lines U87-MG and U251 cells were treated with Compound A. After 96 hours, cell viability was evaluated using CCK-8. The IC50 value of Compound A in U87-MG cells was calculated to be 16.3 μM. The IC50 of Compound A in U251 cells was 10.8 μM. Next, to examine the effect of Compound A on normal cells, we performed the same MTT assay using primary cultured rat astrocytes. The MTT assay showed no decrease in cell viability in primary cultured rat astrocytes at 15 μM, whereas an antitumor effect was observed in a human glioma cell line.
Discussion
In this study, Compound A showed antitumor activity against Glioma without affecting normal cells. In the future, we will examine the effects of Compound A in an immunocompromised mouse brain in which U87-MG-RFP cells are implanted, which may lead to the development of therapeutic agents against Glioma.