Withania somnifera L. against Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
harold jitschak bueno de mesquita
Withania [ also known as Ashwaganda ] :A very common used [ Indian] herb for many purposes, but in case of leucemia one needs of course a doctor and one may want to tell him about this article.
Anticancer Properties of Highly Purified L: -Asparaginase from Oza VP, Parmar PP, Kumar S,Subramanian RB.
Department of Plant Biotechnology, BRD School of Biosciences, Sardar Patel University, Sardar Patel Maidan, Vadtal Road, Satellite Campus, Post Box No. 39, Vallabh Vidyanagar, 388 120, Gujarat, India.
Withania somnifera L. has been traditionally used as a sedative and hypnotic. The present study was carried out for the purification, characterization, and in vitro cytotoxicity of L: -asparaginase from W. somnifera L. L: -Asparaginase was purified from the fruits of W. somnifera L. up to 95% through chromatography. The purified L: -asparaginase was characterized by size exclusion chromatography, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE), and 2D PAGE. The antitumor and growth inhibition effect of the L: -asparaginase was assessed using [3-(4, 5-dimethyl-thiazol-2yl)-2, 5-diphenyl-tetrazolium bromide] (MTT) colorimetric dye reduction method. The purified enzyme is a homodimer, with a molecular mass of 72 +/- 0.5 kDa, and the pI value of the enzyme was around 5.1. This is the first report of the plant containing L: -asparaginase with antitumor activity. Data obtained from the MTT assay showed a LD(50) value of 1.45 +/- 0.05 IU/ml. W. somnifera L. proved to be an effective and a novel source of L: -asparaginase. Furthermore, it shows a lot of similarity with bacterial L: -asparaginases EC-2.