Tea tree oil extract causes mitochondrial superoxide production and apoptosis as an anticancer agent, promoting tumor infiltrating neutrophils cytotoxic for breast cancer to induce tumor regression

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Clark, Amanda M
Magawa, Chandi
Pliego-Zamora, Adriana
Low, Pauline
Reynolds, Max
Ralph, Stephen J
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2021
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Abstract

The antitumor activity of the tea tree oil (TTO) derived product, Melaleuca Alternifolia Concentrate (MAC) was characterized mechanistically at the molecular and cellular level. MAC was analyzed for its anticancer activity against human prostate (LNCaP) and breast (MCF-7) cancer cell lines growing in vitro. MAC (0.02-0.06% v/v) dose-dependently induced the intrinsic (mitochondrial) apoptotic pathway in both the LNCaP and MCF-7 cell lines, involving increased mitochondrial superoxide production, loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), caspase 3/7 activation, as well as the presence of TUNEL+ and cleaved-PARP+ cell populations. At concentrations of 0.01-0.04% v/v, MAC caused cell cycle arrest in the G0/1-phase, as well as autophagy. The in vivo anticancer actions of MAC were examined as a treatment in the FVB/N c-Neu murine model for spontaneously arising breast cancers. Intratumoral MAC injections (1-4% v/v) significantly suppressed tumor progression in a dose-dependent manner and was associated with greater levels of tumor infiltrating neutrophils exhibiting anticancer cytotoxic activity. Induction of breast cancer cell death by MAC via the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway was also replicated occurring in tumors treated in vivo. In conclusion, our data highlights the potential for the Melaleuca-derived MAC product inducing anticancer neutrophil influx, supporting its application as a novel therapeutic agent.

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Biomed Pharmacother

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140

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© 2021 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Biomedical and clinical sciences

Traditional, complementary and integrative medicine

Oncology and carcinogenesis

Cancer therapy (excl. chemotherapy and radiation therapy)

Pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences

Apoptosis

Breast cancer

Cytotoxicity

Melaleuca alternifolia concentrate

Tumor infiltrating neutrophils

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Clark, AM; Magawa, C; Pliego-Zamora, A; Low, P; Reynolds, M; Ralph, SJ, Tea tree oil extract causes mitochondrial superoxide production and apoptosis as an anticancer agent, promoting tumor infiltrating neutrophils cytotoxic for breast cancer to induce tumor regression, Biomed Pharmacother, 2021, 140, pp. 111790

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