Fennel, The Herb Which Causes the Apoptosis of Cancer Cells, Scientists Find

Kyle J. Norton

Scientists may have found a whole food or herb with the potential to activate the protein that programs the death of cancer cells, some studies found.

Cell death is a natural process to warrant the normal development of cells and the cell cycle maturation and maintain the normal function body in the optimized state.

However, some microorganisms are found to process the activity in triggering cell death for their own survival.

Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is a function of the immune system evolved as a rapid and irreversible process to efficiently eliminate dysfunctional cells, including cells that were damaged by the alternation of DNA or infection

Cancer apoptosis is an action that causes cancer cells to die off with or without affecting the nearby cells.

Some herbal medicine such as fennel was showed to induce the function of overexpression of levels of free radical in initiating cytotoxic effect that targets cancer cells while protecting the healthy cells through its antioxidant activity.

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a plant species of genus Foeniculum, belonging to Apiaceae (Umbelliferae), native to the Mediterranean.

The herbal medicine has been used in traditional and herbal medicine as warming, carminative, antispasmodic, antidepressant agent and to stimulate the appetite, ease indigestion, soothe coughing, reduce intestinal spasms, to regulate the menstrual cycle and relieve PMS,...

In the study to investigated several herbal plants ethanol extracts from fruits of their apoptotic activity from fruits of seven species of Apiaceae family, namely, Eryngium planum, Archangelica officinalis, Pastinaca sativa, Heracleum sibiricum, Carum carvi, Foeniculum vulgare (fennel), and Levisticum officinale against ML-1—human acute myeloblastic leukaemia, J-45.01—human acute T cell leukaemia, EOL—human eosinophilic leukaemia, HL-60—human Caucasian promyelocytic leukaemia, 1301—human T cell leukaemia lymphoblast, C-8166—human T cell leukaemia, U-266B1—human myeloma, WICL—human Caucasian normal B cell, and H-9—human T cell, researchers found that

* The ethanol extract from fruit F. vulgare shows the highest mortality in Trypan blue test for J45 cell line with 4% of viable cells and a C8166 cell line with 100% of mortality.

* The extract also shows the highest viability in other cell lines, including the HL60 with 60%, EOLwith 48%, and ML1 with 42%. The normal cell line H9 and WICL showed 35% and 25% of viable cells, respectively.

Furthermore, in the reaffirm the use of fennel in traditional cancer treatment, researchers at the King Abdulaziz University (KAU), launched a study to demonstrate the anti-proliferative and apoptotic effect of chloroform fraction of fennel (CFF) in MCF-7 cells.

Application of fennel showed to inhibit the growth against MCF-7 and MDA-MB-237 in time- and concentration-dependent manners.

Fennel induced a apoptosis of around 49% at the doses of 0.5 mg/ml of CFF and PI-stained cells showed the G1 phase cell cycle arrest, according to the Annexin V/PI-assay.

More importantly, application of fennel also was found to reduce the elevated levels of ROS, disrupted mitochondrial membrane and increased levels of caspase-9 & caspase-3 and DNA fragmentation in the promoted of MCF-7 cells death.experienment

Dr. Syed FQ, the lead author in the final assessment of the experiment said, "(The results) revealed the proliferation inhibition, cell cycle arrest and apoptosis induction effect of CFF, which may help in exploring the novel anti-cancer drug for therapeutic implications".

Moreover, in the study to examine whether anethole, a major bioactive compound found in fennel, anise, and camphor processes anti-metastatic and apoptotic effects on highly-metastatic HT-1080 human fibrosarcoma tumor cells, researchers found that
* Despite weak cytotoxicity against HT-1080 cells, anethole inhibits the adhesion to Matrigel and invasion of HT-1080 cells in a dose-dependent manner.

* Anethole is also able to down-regulate the expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 and -9 with anti-apoptotic function and up-regulate the gene expression of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (TIMP)-1 with apoptotic function.

Finally, anethole significantly decreased mRNA expression of urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA), but not uPA receptor (uPAR) in the facilitated cancer cell death.

Taken all together, fennel alone or its extracts and bioactive compound anethole may be considered adjunct therapy combined with conventional medicine for treatment of cancers

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Foeniculum vulgare Mill: A Review of Its Botany, Phytochemistry, Pharmacology, Contemporary Application, and Toxicology by Shamkant B. Badgujar, Vainav V. Patel, and Atmaram H. Bandivdekar(PMC)
(2) Chloroform fraction of Foeniculum vulgare induced ROS mediated, mitochondria-caspase-dependent apoptotic pathway in MCF-7, human breast cancer cell line by Syed FQ1, Elkady AI2, Mohammed FA3, Mirza MB4, Hakeem KR5, Alkarim S(PubMed)
(3) Anethole exerts antimetatstaic activity via inhibition of matrix metalloproteinase 2/9 and AKT/mitogen-activated kinase/nuclear factor kappa B signaling pathways by Choo EJ1, Rhee YH, Jeong SJ, Lee HJ, Kim HS, Ko HS, Kim JH, Kwon TR, Jung JH, Kim JH, Lee HJ, Lee EO, Kim DK, Chen CY, Kim SH(PubMed)