Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0677930 (primary tumor)
 20,210 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The antimalarial artesunate also exerts profound cytotoxicity toward tumor cells. Earlier investigations controversially discussed a possible immunosuppressive function of artemsinin and its derivatives. This poses the question, whether immunosuppressive activity counteracts the anticancer activity in vivo. To clarify this issue, we used a transgenic mouse spontaneous melanoma model, in which ret transgene is expressed in melanocytes under the control of metallothionein-I promoter. ret-transgenic mice were previously reported to accumulate melanoma-specific effector memory T cells and natural killer (NK) cells in the primary tumors and metastatic lymph nodes. In the present investigation, we monitored effects of artesunate on the CD4 and CD8 T cells as well as Treg and NK cells from ret-transgenic tumor-bearing mice and nontransgenic littermates in vivo. In addition, we investigated cytostatic and cytotoxic activity of artesunate on ret-tumor cells established from the mouse primary tumor. Artesunate inhibited growth of ret-tumor cells and induces their apoptosis in a concentration-dependent manner (0.1-200 micromol/l). Furthermore, we did not find considerable effects of artesunate on the immune function as measured by major cell populations of the immune system; that is, CD4 and CD8 T cells as well as Treg and NK cells both from ret-transgenic mice and nontransgenic C57BL/6 littermates treated for 2 weeks with a daily dose of 1 mg artesunate. These results indicate that the cytostatic and apoptotic effects of artesunate are not diminished by concomitant immunosuppression.
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PMID:Effect of artesunate on immune cells in ret-transgenic mouse melanoma model. 1974 21