Authors
Krešimir Pavelić1, Mirko Hadžija1, Ljiljana Bedrica2, Jasminka Pavelić1, Ivan Ðikić3, Maša Katić1, Marijeta Kralj1, Maja Herak Bosnar1, Sanja Kapitanović1, Marija Poljak-Blaži1, Šimun Križanac4, Ranko Stojković1, Mislav Jurin1, Boris Subotić1, Miroslav Čolić5
1Ruđer Bošković Institute, Division of Molecular Medicine and Division of Material Chemistry, Bijenička 54, Zagreb, Croatia E-mail: pavelic@rudjer.irb.hr Phone: +3851-46-80094 Fax: +3851-46-80094 2Veterinary Faculty, University of Zagreb, Heinzelova 55, 10001 Zagreb, Croatia 3Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Biomedical Center, Husargatan 3, Uppsala, Sweden 4Institute of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zagreb, Šalata 11, Zagreb, Croatia 5Molecular Technologies Inc., 6512 Segovia, Goleta, CA 93117, USA
Abstract
Natural silicate materials, including zeolite clinoptilolite, have been shown to exhibit diverse biological activities and have been used successfully as a vaccine adjuvant and for the treatment of diarrhea. We report a novel use of finely ground clinoptilolite as a potential adjuvant in anticancer therapy. Clinoptilolite treatment of mice and dogs suffering from a variety of tumor types led to improvement in the overall health status, prolongation of life-span, and decrease in tumors size. Local application of clinoptilolite to skin cancers of dogs effectively reduced tumor formation and growth. In addition, toxicology studies on mice and rats demonstrated that the treatment does not have negative effects. In vitro tissue culture studies showed that finely ground clinoptilolite inhibits protein kinase B (c-Akt), induces expression of p21WAF1/CIP1 and p27KIP1 tumor suppressor proteins, and blocks cell growth in several cancer cell lines. These data indicate that clinoptilolite treatment might affect cancer growth by attenuating survival signals and inducing tumor suppressor genes in treated cells.
Keywords
Clinoptilolite · Adjuvant · Anticancer · Treatment
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