Skip Navigation



eCAM Advance Access published online on January 8, 2009
eCAM, doi:10.1093/ecam/nen081
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Matsuda, T.
Right arrow Articles by Hisamitsu, T.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Matsuda, T.
Right arrow Articles by Hisamitsu, T.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?


© 2009 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Suppressive Effect of Juzen-Taiho-To on Lung Metastasis of B16 Melanoma Cells in vivo

Takako Matsuda, Katsuhiko Maekawa, Kazuhito Asano and Tadashi Hisamitsu

Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, Showa University, Tokyo, Japan

Juzen-Taiho-To (JTT) is well known to be one of Kampo (Japanese herbal) medicine consisted of 10 component herbs and used for the supplemental therapy of cancer patients with remarkably success. However, the precise mechanisms by which JTT could favorably modify the clinical conditions of cancer patients are not well defined. The present study, therefore, was undertaken to examine the possible mechanisms of JTT on prevention of cancer metastasis using experimental mouse model. JTT was well mixed with rodent chow at concentrations of either 0.2 or 1.0%, and administered orally ad libitum, which was started 1 week before tumor cell injection and continue throughout the experiment. Oral administration of JTT at concentration 0.2 and 1.0% into C57BL/6 male mice significantly inhibited tumor metastasis in lungs, which was induced by the intravenous injection of 2 x 105 B16 melanoma cell. JTT at a concentration of 1.0% also significantly suppressed lung metastasis of B16 melanoma cell from hind footpad in C57BL/6 mice. In the second part of experiments, the influence of the depression of natural killer (NK) cell, natural killer T (NKT) cell and several types of cytokines on JTT-mediated inhibition of tumor cell metastasis. Intraperitoneal injection of anti asialo-GM1 antibody against NK cells and anti NK-1.1 monoclonal antibody (mAb) to NKT cells abrogated the inhibitory action of JTT on lung metastasis of B16 melanoma cells. Although intraperitoneal administration of anti-IFN-{gamma} mAb scarcely affected the inhibitory action of JTT on tumor cell metastasis, injection of amrinone, which used for IL-12 suppression, significantly decreased the ability of JTT to prevent tumor cell metastasis. These results strongly suggest that oral administration of JTT caused increase in the production of IL-12, which is responsible for the activation of both NK cell and NKT cell, in the lungs and results in inhibition of B16 melanoma cell metastasis in the lungs.

Keywords: herbal medicine – IFN-{gamma} – IL-12 – Juzen-Taiho-To – NK cell – NKT cell

For reprints and all correspondence: Takako Matsuda, Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, Showa University, 1-5-8 Hatanodai, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 142-8555, Japan. Tel: +81-3-3784-8110; Fax: +81-3-3784-5368; E-mail: mtakako{at}y4.dion.ne.jp

Received February 14, 2008; accepted November 27, 2008


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.