Hyderabad: Tissues from a plant closely resembling the Andrographis Paniculata (known as Nelavemu in Telugu and Kaalmegh in Hindi) could have potential cancer curing properties, scientists have observed.
Researchers studied the anti-cancer properties of its sister plant Andrographis Lineata, which is often used as a substitute for the Nelavemu plant and is grown in India and Southeast Asia. They found it to be a good base for cancer chemotherapeutic agents. Research around the world is focusing on natural, plant based therapeutic agents to cure cancer.
Andrographis Paniculata, or the Nelavemu, is already known for its medicinal and therapeutic properties. But scientists studied its sister plant Andrographis Lineata, which is often used as a substitute for the former in traditional medicine.
Researchers led by Dr Arifullah Mohammed and Kishore Chiruvella from the Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati, Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, University of Malaysia in Kelantan and Chaoyang University of Technology in Taiwan studied the anti-cancer properties of the plant.
Researchers said the Andrographis Lineata is widely used by tribals to treat snakebite, diabetes, skin diseases, fever, constipation and bronchitis. Researchers used leukemia cell lines derived from T-cell leukemia patients to study the cytotoxicity of a particular kind of tissue from the Lineata plant known as callus cells.
They reported that the administration of the leukemia cells with compounds prepared from the Lineata plant tissues resulted in cytotoxicity and cell deaths after just 72 hours of administration. “There has been a growing interest to identify plant products as therapeutic agents that can effectively interfere with cancer cell proliferation. One striking medicinal plant in this register is Andrographis Lineata with a wide range of pharmacological effects. Our study provides new insights of callus cultures of Andrographis Lineata inducing cytotoxicity on cancer cells,” scientists said.
