Various chemical and biochemical differentiation compounds have been shown to revert to normal state several kinds of cancer cells. As embryonic and cancer cells present similarities of behavior and phenotype and as regulatory factors in young embryos have been found, a treatment of cancer cells by embryo cell extracts could be possible. These factors were prepared from rat and mouse embryonic cell nuclei and partially purified by high performance liquid chromatography. They inhibited up to 90% DNA synthesis of LFCl2A, an established cell line from a hepatocarcinoma and of Raji, a B cell line at the stage blast 1 from a Burkitt lymphoma. They prolonged the survival time of rats injected with LFCl2A and increased the percentage of survivors at one month. In the same way, the inhibitory and apoptotic effects of Zebra fish proteins on human colon cancer cells and hepatocellular carcinoma have been reported by Italian researchers. As these factors were not cytotoxic and were active at low concentration, they could be used repeatedly on the remaining cancer cells, after surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy.
Author(s): G. Berger, C. Frayssinet, M. Berger, and C. Lafarge-Frayssinet