Common Weed From the Cabbage Family Can Stop Cancer

Professor Alessandra Devoto of the Royal Holloway, University of London and her colleagues discovered that a common weed in the cabbage family has anticancer abilities that could be the answer for treating cancer patients.

In a report by Helen Albert of Forbes, the scientists tested whether the leaves of this plant could stop the growth of breast cancer cells in the lab. They found out that exposure to the leaf sections of Arabidopsis thaliana has stopped the growth of cancer cells in an experiment of both cancer and non-cancer cells.

The findings could be the next treatment for cancer without harming healthy cells which existing treatments cannot do as most of them are quite toxic to both to cancer and healthy cells.

Devoto said that the weed is like the "Cinderella" of the medicinal plant world that nobody has thought special. But through their research, its true use was revealed.

"The discovery has important implications in developing treatments for cancer as well as other diseases," Devoto added.

Plants Against Cancer

Cancer kills one out of six people worldwide making it the second leading cause of death among people. Great advancements in medicine have been made for many years now in an effort to control and treat cancer. However, many undesired side effects occur during chemotherapy.

But currently, natural therapies for those medicines from plants are being used in treating cancer that may reduce adverse effects. Although some of these promising plants showed significant anticancer properties in the lab, they are yet to be tested on humans. Which means they need more research to determine the efficacy of these plants in treating cancer in humans.

An example of plant-derived cancer treatment is the paclitaxel or also known as Taxol. It is used in chemotherapy that treats various cancer, such as lung, ovarian, and breast cancer. Its active ingredient was from the pacific yew tree that was isolated in 1971.

Moreover, cabbage, broccoli, mustard, oilseed rape, Arabidopsis thaliana and other plants in the Brassica family are known for their bioactive chemicals that contain anticancer properties, like the chemical sulforaphane which is found in broccoli sprouts, cabbage, Chinese kale, and watercress.

Arabidopsis Leaf Samples Stop the Growth of Cancer Cells

Devoto said that she was interested in Arabidopsis because it belonged to the cabbage family, which could contain the same compounds. This plant is commonly known as an invasive weed and is not commonly eaten although it is edible. It was also not previously thought of as a medicinal herb.

To supercharge the weed, the team decided to apply jasmonate hormone on the leaves of Arabidopsis. The researchers said that their experiment with the weed is still in its early stage, but it is interesting that a plant commonly used in experimental studies before, could have anticancer properties.

Furthermore, this study only looks at its effects on breast cancer cells, but they believe that its anticancer abilities could also be generalized in other types of cancer.

"We are looking forward to continuing our collaboration to identify the plant-derived chemicals that interfere with breast cancer cells as well as with other diseases and to progress this research by gathering more funding to benefit society more widely," Devoto concluded.