Shrayana Ghosh, Amity University Kolkata
A hero in disguise, which was earlier set aside for not being medically useful, recently proved potent against breast cancer cell growth and, also doesn’t affect the division of normal cells. This could be a futuristic solution by being a very useful cancer chemotherapy treatment.
The ground-breaking discovery was made at the University of London, led by Professor Alessandra Devoto and his team in collaboration with Professor Nicholas Smirnoff of the University of Exeter and Dr. Amanda Harvey of Brunel University London. The leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana were treated with the plant hormone Jasmonate resulted in boosting plant responses to stress when incubated with breast cancer cells. The result established that there was a halt in the growth of the cancer cells but the normal cells remained unaffected. The use of Arabidopsis plants in the treatment of breast cancer could pave a way to less recovery time and also lesser secondary effects for the patients who are subjected to chemotherapy for cancer. Researches on both teams have also discovered the molecular mechanisms which are associated with changes in the breast cancer cells which will in turn enable further development of new therapies.
According to Dr. Harvey and Professor Smirnoff, the combined forces of their plant-based forces and the recent developments in metabolic engineering, biotechnology can lead to the production and analysis of plant metabolites on an industrial scale for usage in cancer treatments as well as other diseases.
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