The Action of Bovine Cartilage on Tumor Cells In Vitro And In Vivo

In an earlier study we had investigated the effect of Bovine Cartilage (BC) on mouse melanoma cells. In pursuant to this study BC anti-tumor activity in vitro against several human tumor cell lines was evaluated, mechanism by which BC induces tumor cell death was studied and its immunogenicity was assessed. Five mice received Intraperitoneal (IP) injection of BC once every 14 days for over a period of 42 days. Fourteen days after the last BC dose, mice were bled and sera were used to assess production of anti-BC antibodies by passive hemagglutination. To assess the effect of BC on human tumor cells, three different human tumor cell lines were incubated separately with increasing concentrations of BC for 48 h and percent viability was determined in vitro. Moreover, human lung cancer cell line A549 and mouse B16F10 melanoma cells were incubated separately with their respective half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of BC and apoptosis/necrosis assay was performed. No antibody against BC was detected. In vitro, total eradication of human tumor cell lines was seen with 5000 μg mL^-1 of BC. It appears that BC induces tumor cell death through apoptosis and this mechanism of action is the same across different cell lines and species. Additionally, BC appeared to be non-immunogenic.