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Sacred Tree Known As Nature's Drug Store: Neem Tree Provides Anti-Cancer Compound

Thursday, February 14, 2013 22:36

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In India, the neem plant is variously known as “Sacred Tree,” “Heal All,” “Nature’s Drugstore,” “Village Pharmacy” and “Panacea for all diseases”. Products made from neem trees have been used in India for over two millennia for their medicinal properties: neem products are believed to be anthelmintic, antifungal, antidiabetic, antibacterial, antiviral, contraceptive and sedative. It is considered a major component in Ayurvedic and Unani medicine and is particularly prescribed for skin disease.

Scientists at the Georgia Regents University Cancer Center have found that the Indian plant, neem, used for centuries to treat inflammation, fever and malaria, could help kill cancer cells.

Gedunin, a tetranortriterpenoid ingredient, is found in the Indian neem tree . It has been used as a natural remedy in Asia for centuries and has recently been found to have antimalarial, insecticidal and anticancer properties

The neem tree also known as Azadirachta indica

Cancer cells typically avoid death by hijacking molecular chaperones that guide and protect the proteins that ensure normal cellular function and then tricking them into helping mutated versions of those proteins stay alive, says Dr. Ahmed Chadli, a researcher in the Molecular Chaperone Program at the GRU Cancer Center and senior author of the study named the Journal of Biological Chemistry’s Paper of the Week.

Drug development has focused on the chaperone Hsp90 (heat shock protein 90) because it plays a key role in assisting mutated proteins, making it an attractive cancer drug target. However, the clinical efficacy of Hsp90 inhibitors has been disappointing. Most current small molecules targeting Hsp90 have inadvertently resulted in the expression of proteins that protect cancer cells from programmed cell death and compromise the Hsp90 inhibitors in the clinic.

In this study, however, Chaitanya Patwardhan, a graduate student in Dr. Chadli’s lab, found that gedunin, an Indian plant compound, attacks a co-chaperone, or helper protein, of Hsp90 called p23.

Dr. Ahmed Chadli (from left) and Chaitanya Patwardhan, Georgia Regents University Cancer Center.

Credit: Phil Jones photo

“This compound binds directly to p23, leading to inactivation of the Hsp90 machine—without production of anti-apoptotic proteins—thus killing cancer cells,” said Dr. Chadli. “The idea here is that this will open a door for new ways of targeting Hsp90 by targeting its helper proteins, which may be used in combination with established Hsp90 inhibitors that are ongoing clinical trials. In the future, this research could have applications in drug development for hormone-dependent cancers, including breast, prostate and endometrial cancers.”

“One of the major areas of scientific emphasis of the GRU Cancer Center is to develop therapeutic approaches to cancer targeting specific molecules within the cancer cell, including chaperones,” said Dr. Samir N. Khleif, Director of the GRU Cancer Center. “This finding is an important piece of the puzzle, bringing us closer to our goal of helping patients with cancer.”

Along with Patwardhan, the study was also authored by Dr. Abdul Fauq, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine; Laura B. Peterson and Dr. Brian S.J. Blagg, both of the University of Kansas; and Dr. Charles Miller, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

Dr. Chadli’s lab is also the recipient of a National Institutes of Health R01 grant to look for new molecules targeting the Hsp90 machine.

Here is a brief video on the traditional uses of neem.

Salimuzzaman Siddiqui was the first scientist to bring the anthelmintic, antifungal, antibacterial, and antiviral constituents of the Neem tree to the attention of natural products chemists. In 1942, he extracted three bitter compounds from neem oil, which he named as nimbin, nimbinin, and nimbidin respectively

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