Eupatorin is a polymethoxy
flavone extracted from Orthosiphon stamineus and was reported to exhibit cytotoxic effects on several
cancer cell lines. However, its effect as an anti-
breast cancer agent in vivo has yet to be determined. This study aims to elucidate the potential of
eupatorin as an anti-
breast cancer agent in vivo using 4T1 challenged BALB/c mice model. In this article, BALB/c mice (20-22 g) challenged with 4T1 cells were treated with 5 mg/kg or 20 mg/kg
eupatorin, while the untreated and healthy mice were fed with
olive oil (vehicle) via oral gavage. After 28 days of experiment, the mice were sacrificed and blood was collected for serum
cytokine assay, while
tumors were harvested to extract
RNA and
protein for gene expression assay and
hematoxylin-
eosin staining. Organs such as spleen and lung were harvested for immune suppression and clonogenic assay, respectively.
Eupatorin (20 mg/kg) was effective in delaying the
tumor development and reducing
metastasis to the lung compared with the untreated mice.
Eupatorin (20 mg/kg) also enhanced the immunity as the population of NK1.1+ and CD8+ in the splenocytes and the serum
interferon-γ were increased. Concurrently,
eupatorin treatment also has downregulated the expression of pro-inflammatory and metastatic related genes (IL-1β. MMP9, TNF-α, and NF-κB). Thus, this study demonstrated that
eupatorin at the highest dosage of 20 mg/kg
body weight was effective in delaying the 4T1-induced
breast tumor growth in the animal model.