Effects of Leuzea carthamoides (maral root) in MCF-7 cells

Products derived from roots of Leuzea carthamoides DC. (maral root) are being promoted as anti-aging and adaptogenic. The phytoecdysteroids are considered as active principles with numerous beneficial effects, but little is known about the pharmacological properties of Leuzea extracts. We, therefore, investigated the effects of a lipophilic Leuzea root extract on ER+ breast cancer MCF-7 cells at transcriptional level in comparison to 17beta-estradiol and the ER antagonist tamoxifen. With the extract 241 genes were regulated more than 1.5 fold. We observed gene regulation in an anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic manner. Additionally, expression of several enzymes with oxidoreductase activity was induced including a very strong increase of the phase I enzyme CYP1A1, a possible link to the AhR pathway, which might explain other expression results, e.g. the correlated regulation of about 20 genes by Leuzea compared to 17beta-estradiol. Keywords: treatment with Leuzea carthamoides MCF-7 cells were treated for 24 h with a lipophilic (dichloromethane) Leuzea root extract, 17beta-estradiol, tamoxifen and the solvent control (0,1% DMSO) in duplicate