DESI KARELA OF JAMMU; AN ANTAGONIST TO CANCER

25/01/2015

Momordica charantia (Linn.) also known as bitter gourd or karela and belonging to family cucurbitaceae, is widely cultivated in Asia, Africa and South America. In India and China, it is commonly consumed as vegetable and extensively used in folk medicine as a remedy for diabetes. Momordica charantia (bitter melon) is known to contain glycosides such as momordin, vitamin C, carotenoids, flavonoids, polyphenols and in India, various medicinal properties are claimed for it that include antidiabetic, anthelmintic, contraceptive, antimalarial and is also used for the treatment of gout, jaundice, kidney (stone), leprosy, leucorrhea, piles, pneumonia, psoriasis, rheumatism, scabies. Bitter melon had in vivo and in vitro anticancer activity and Eleostearic acid (?-ESA), which is a conjugated linolenic acid that makes up 60% of bitter melon seed oil, can block breast cancer proliferation. 9, 11, 13-octadecatrienoic acid (?-eleostearic acid), a major linolenic acid in bitter melon seeds strongly inhibited the growth of some cancers and fibroblast cell lines including those of HL-60 leukemia and HT-29 colon carcinoma. MCP30, a protein isolated from bitter melon seeds was found effective against prostate cancer cells. Fruit and leaves of the plant inhibited skin, prostate and mammary tumor growth. Cucurbitane-type triterpene glycosides isolated from the fruits of Japanese Momordica charantia exhibited marked inhibitory effect on induced mouse skin carcinogenesis. It was also demonstrated that maximal anticar cinogenic activity is found in the peel of Momordica charantia. Cancer is a deadly disease facing the humanity today and has emerged as an important health problem in the developed / developing countries and recognized as the important cause of morbidity, mortality, disability in India also. Cancer cases related mortality on rise in J&K during past few years, but most of the drugs used in cancer chemotherapy exhibit cell toxicity and can induce genotoxic, carcinogenic and teratogenic effects in non tumor cells. Therefore, the research for alternative drugs of natural origin, which are less toxic, endowed with fewer side effects and more potent in their mechanism of action, is an important research line. A number of exciting researches suggest that vegetables, fruits, whole grains, herbs, nuts and seeds contain an abundance of polyphenolic compounds, terpenoids, sulphur compounds, pigments and other natural antioxidants, that have been associated with protection from or treatment of conditions such as cancer.
Our Jammu region has great vegetable diversity, but very few of them have been subjected to accepted scientific evaluation for their potential anticancer effects. Therefore, researchers from Division of Biochemistry and Plant Physiology, SKUAST-Jammu in collaboration with the Scientists from Cancer Pharmacology Division, Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM-CSIR), Jammu collected desi karela from Baisht village of Udhampur district and evaluated/tested its in vitro cytotoxic effect against various human cancer cells. They got significant results, that is strong antiproliferative effect on a range of human cancer cell lines was displayed by karela as it suppressed the proliferation of a wide spectrum of six human cancer cell lines derived from six different tissues and the growth inhibition range was between 76-100%.
The karela showed maximum activity against lung and breast cancer cell lines as 100% growth inhibition was observed against lung cancer cells and 99% growth inhibition was observed against breast cancer cells. Significant results were also produced by this vegetable in case of colon (97%) and leukemia (91%) cancer cells. The fruit of karela also showed 82% growth inhibition on prostate cancer cells and 76% growth inhibition on glioblastoma cancer cells. What is quite remarkable in these observations is that the cytotoxic effect shown by the karela was much stronger than that shown by 5-flurouracil, adriamycin and taxol (standard drugs for cancer). Thus, the results obtained confirmed the therapeutic potency of desi karela of Jammu and in addition these results form a good basis for selection of this vegetable for further phytochemical and pharmacological analysis. Moreover, the research support the folkloric usage of the vegetable and showed that it possesses certain cytotoxic constituents that can be used for developing anticancer agents for cancer therapy. Further, the research is going on in the Division of Biochemistry and Plant Physiology, SKUAST-Jammu to find out the active ingredients in karela that possess anticancer potential and can further be used for the management of cancer. Thus, on the basis of present analysis, author suggested that Jammuities should encourage the consumption of desi karela in their daily meals so as to avoid the risk of cancer. Therefore, we can say that Jammu desi karela possesses cytotoxic potential mainly against breast, lung and colon cancer and active ingredients from this vegetable will surely serve as lead molecule (s) in the development of anticancer drugs to provide a great promise and service to cancer patient.
(The author is Assistant Professor (Biochemistry) SKUAST-JAMMU, Main Campus Chatha, Jammu -180009 and presently working on anticancer potential of medicinal plants of Jammu region)

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