2002 Volume 48 Issue 4 Pages 303-309
Common small fruit produced naturally in Japan is attracted as healthy food. We studied on inhibitory activity of several small fruit extracts on growth of cancer cells to look for a candidate of healthy food or low toxic anti-cancer drugs. Among the fruit extracts examined, Actinidia polygama (Matatabi) extract had dose-dependent potent inhibitory activity against the growth of a promyelocytic leukemia cell line, HL-60, but was less effective on a colon cancer cell line, LS-174T, or normal human dermal fibroblast cells. We examined a part of the responsible mechanism of growth inhibition of HL-60 cells. Active agents in A. polygama fruit were heat-stable and small molecular weight of less than 1000. HL-60 cells incubated with an extract of A. polygama fruit induced apoptosis, which was detected by electrophoretic DNA fragmentation, morphological chromatin condensation and the TUNEL method with flow cytometry.
