探討具有保護正常細胞免於順鉑毒殺作用的中草藥

Abstract

順鉑為最常用於治療癌症的化學治療藥物，但具有腎臟毒性和神經毒性。因此，找到能夠與順鉑協同抑制癌細胞生長，又能降低順鉑對正常細胞毒性(特別是神經細胞)的藥物是很重要的。中草藥在中國已被廣泛使用數千年，其藥效相較於西藥來得溫和，現今也有研究指稱它具有保護正常細胞免於化療藥物的毒殺效果。因此，我們以肝癌細胞株Hep3B和卵巢癌細胞株SKOV3建立癌症模型，並使用神經瘤細胞株SH-SY5Y建立神經細胞平台，以篩選可保護神經細胞免於順鉑毒殺作用的中草藥萃取物。初步篩選後，茯苓及天麻兩種中草藥萃取物能夠抑制Hep3B和SKOV3的生長，並且對於經維生素A酸刺激分化過的神經母細胞瘤SH-SY5Y細胞沒有毒性。根據以上實驗結果，茯苓及天麻可望成為與順鉑一起作用的複方，並期許其未來可應用於臨床治療。

Cisplatin is one of the most often used chemotherapeutics in clinical. However, it often induces renal and neural toxicity. Therefore, it is important to establish an adjuvant therapy that reduces the cytotoxicity of cisplatin to normal cells, especially neuron, but does not affect its inhibitory effects on cancer cells. Herbal medicine has been widely used for thousand years in Asia and presents relatively moderate side-effects compared to western medicine. Recent studies show that it has potential to protect cells against cytotoxicity caused by drugs. Here we used hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) Hep3B cell line and ovarian neoplasms SKOV3 cell line as cancer model, and neurocytoma SH-SY5Y as a neuron cell platform to screen the Chinese herbal extracts which act synergistically with cisplatin to inhibit survival of cancer cells, but weaken the cytotoxicity of cisplatin to neuron. Our results found that two Chinese herbal extracts, Wolfiporia extensa and Gastrodia elata, that can inhibit the growth of Hep3B and SKOV3 cells but do not have cytotoxicity to retinoic acid-differentiated SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells. From these results, Wolfiporia extensa and Gastrodia elata extracts may serve as an adjuvant treatment for cisplatin clinically in the future.