Advanced malignant melanoma responds to Prunus mume Sieb. Et Zucc (Ume) extract: Case report and in vitro study

Abstract

Abstract. malignant melanoma (mm) is an aggressive chemoresistant skin cancer characterized by rapid metastasis and a poor prognosis. therefore, the development of innovative effective therapies is critical. mK615 is an extract from the Japanese apricot Prunus mume Sieb. Et Zucc (ume). at a neutral ph, it contains natural chemical substances such as triterpenoids that exert anti-neoplastic effects in several types of cancers. We found that in patients with advanced mm, mK615 dramatically suppressed the cutaneous in-transit metastasis of the disease. pre-and post-treatment comparison of tumors showed that the apoptotic index was significantly increased by MK615. In vitro studies, MTT assay, flow cytometric cell cycle analysis and immunofluorescence microscopy revealed that MK615 inhibited the growth of SK-mEl28 cells in a dose-dependent manner, increased the proportion of cells in sub-G1 phase and induced apoptosis. We further examined the expression of the receptor for advanced glycation end products (raGE). raGE is a multi-ligand receptor that binds to a novel cytokine, high mobility group box protein 1 (hmGB1), as well as advanced glycation end products. there is evidence that raGE/hmGB1 interactions enhance cell invasion in mm. here, we present Western blotting and immunofluorescence microscopy data indicating that mK615 inhibited the expression of raGE in SK-mEl28 cells, and suppressed the release of hmGB1 by SK-MEL28 cells. Our findings suggest that MK615 may be a valuable tool for treating mm and other malignant tumors.

Extract from Prunus mume Sieb. et Zucc. Fruit Prevents LPS-induced Homotypic Aggregation of Monocytic THP-1 Cells via Suppression of Nitric Oxide Production and NF-κB Activation

“…In addition, it is worthy of note that a range of concentrations (≤10 μg/ml) of Maesil extract employed in this study are likely to be physiologically and clinically rele- an extract of the Prunus mume, is able to relieve severe symptoms of patients with cancer when 6.5 g of MK615 was administered twice per day [12]. Based on this and other data, the effective concentrations (≤10 μg/ml) of Maesil extract used in this study are comparable to doses administrated in clinical and in vivo studies [12,23]. It is also noteworthy that an advantage of using whole extracts seems likely to appear unexpected efficacy caused by unknown compounds in the whole extracts.…”

Advanced hepatocellular carcinoma responds to MK615, a compound extract from the Japanese apricot “Prunus mume ”

“…However, there has been little clinical data with regard to the effects of MK615 against cancer. One study with a small number of clinical cases showed that MK615 was useful for malignant melanoma [15] , and the clinical efficacy and safety of MK615 has been reported for patients with chronic liver disease [17] . However, the clinical benefit of MK615 for HCC patients has not been evaluated.…”

“…Although the activities underlying the antitumor effects have been reported to include the induction of apoptosis [5,8] , autophagy [12,16] and the suppression of aurora A kinase [9,11] , the exact mechanism(s) of action of MK615 are still being elucidated. A large amount of basic data regarding the effects of MK615 against cancer cells in vitro have been published [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] . However, there has been little clinical data with regard to the effects of MK615 against cancer.…”

“…It has been reported that MK615 inhibits cell growth and induces the death of several tumor cell lines [5][6][7] , including gastric cancer [5] , promyelocytic leukemia [5] , breast cancer [8] , pancreatic cancer [9] , HCC [10,11] , colon cancer [12] , esophageal cancer [13] , malignant melanoma [14,15] and lung cancer cells [16] . The activities underlying the anti-tumor effects of MK615 have been reported to include the induction of apoptosis [5,8] , autophagy [12,16] and the suppression of aurora A kinase [9,11] .…”

Japanese Apricot (Ume): A Novel Therapeutic Approach for the Treatment of Periodontitis

“…It contains several triterpenoids and has been shown to exert an anti-neoplastic effect against human cancers, such as breast cancer, stomach cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, colon cancer and malignant melanoma. The mechanisms responsible for the anti-neoplastic effects of MK615 include induction of apoptosis and autophagy, and suppression of Aurora A kinase in cancer cells (Nakagawa et al, 2007;Adachi et al, 2007;Okada et al, 2007;Mori et al, 2007;Matsushita et al, 2010).…”