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Suppression of Polyps Formation by Saffron Extract in Adenomatous polyposis coliMin/+ Mice

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 2, 2

  1. 1Departments of Biochemistry
  2. 2Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nagasaki International University, Sasebo, Nagasaki, JAPAN.
  3. 3Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nagasaki International University, Sasebo, Nagasaki, JAPAN.
  4. 4School of Medicine and Pharmacy, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, VIETNAM.
  5. 5Central Radioisotope Division, Research Institute, Tokyo, JAPAN.
  6. 6Epidemiology and Prevention Division, Research Center for Cancer Prevention and Screening, National Cancer Center, Tokyo, JAPAN.

CORRESPONDENCE

Yukihiro Shoyama

Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nagasaki International University, Sasebo, Nagasaki, JAPAN.

shoyama@niu.ac.jp

Volume 11, Issue 1 · pp. 98-101 · 2019 · DOI: 10.4103/pr.pr_152_18

ABSTRACT

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) has been used both as a food additive for flavoring and coloring and in traditional medicine. Saffron extract and its main component crocin decrease the growth of several types of human cancer, including colorectal cancer in vitro. Numerous polyps develop in the small intestine in the Adenomatous polyposis coli (Apc) deficiency mice. ApcMin/+ mice are models for human familial adenomatous polyposis and human colon cancer patients. In this study, we examined the efficacy of saffron extract added to diet on reducing the polyp density in ApcMin/+ mice. ApcMin/+ mice were either given a placebo or saffron extract (0.1% and 0.5%) diet for 4 weeks. At 12 weeks of age, intestines were analyzed for polyp number in the small intestine. Our analysis confirmed that crocin (1), crocin-2 (2), and crocin-4 (4) are the major compounds in the saffron extract and the content of 1 in the tested saffron extract was 29.2%. Saffron extract decreased the number of intestinal polyps in a concentration‑dependent manner in ApcMin/+ mice. Notably, the number of polyps in the distal small intestine of the mice fed with 0.5% saffron extract was significantly decreased compared with the placebo. These results indicate that saffron extract can reduce the polyp number in the ApcMin/+ mice.

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    Fujimoto, K., Ohta, T., Yamaguchi, H., Tung, N. H., Fujii, G., Mutoh, M., Uto, T., & Shoyama, Y. (2019). Suppression of Polyps Formation by Saffron Extract in Adenomatous polyposis coliMin/+ Mice. Pharmacognosy Research, 11(1), 98-101. https://doi.org/10.4103/pr.pr_152_18

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    © 2019 Author(s)

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0