Cancer Treatment: Orange Lichens, Potential Source For Anticancer Drugs

A recent study found that the orange pigment found in lichens and rhubarb, called parietin, could be a potential cancer treatment drug, according to scientists at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University.

Parietin, which is also known as physcion, could slow the growth of and kill human leukemia cells obtained directly from patients, without causing toxicity to human blood cells, according to a news release.

The researcher team was led by Dr. Jing Chen, professor of hematology and medical oncology at Emory University School of Medicine and Winship Cancer Institute. They found that the pigment is capable of hindering the growth of human cancer cell lines derived from lung, head and neck tumors when grafted onto mice.

The researchers found the properties of parietin because they were looking for inhibitors for the metabolic enzyme 6PGD (6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase). 6PGD is a part of the pentose phosphate pathway, which supplies cellular building blocks for rapid growth. The researchers found that 6PGD enzyme activity increased in several types of cancer cells.

"This is part of the Warburg effect, the distortion of cancer cells' metabolism. We found that 6PGD is an important metabolic branch point in several types of cancer cells," Chen said.

Cancer cells were obtained from a patient with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and the researchers found that doses of physcion/parietin could kill half the leukemia cells in culture within 48 hours and healthy blood cells remained unharmed with the same doses. The researchers claim that a more potent derivative of the pigment called S3 could cut the growth of a lung cancer cell line by three to 11 days, when the cells were implanted into mice.

The researchers claimed that 6PGD inhibitors are known to be nontoxic, however they need to undergo further toxicology studies to determine if there are potential side effects and to see whether people with inherited conditions would be more sensitive to the drugs.

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