Geraniol (GOH), a naturally occurring
monoterpene, has been shown to have antiproliferative, cell cycle arrest and apoptosis-inducing effects, and represents a promising
cancer chemopreventive agent. In the present study, we investigated the chemopreventive potential of GOH (50 and 100 mg kg(-1)
body weight) against 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]
anthracene (DMBA)/12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate (TPA)-mediated skin
tumorigenesis in Swiss albino mice. The topical treatment of GOH, 30 min prior to TPA (2 µg per 200 µl of
acetone) treatment significantly inhibited TPA-induced skin
edema,
hyperplasia, COX-2 induction and oxidative stress response. The GOH treatment also resulted in reduction of TPA-induced
ornithine decarboxylase activity and [(3) H]
thymidine incorporation by 53% (P < 0.001) and 41% (P < 0.001), respectively. We found that GOH treatment significantly inhibited the
tumor incidence and number of
tumors (P < 0.001) and extended the latency period from 4 weeks in DMBA/TPA treatment group to 10 weeks in GOH-pretreated mice. Furthermore, we observed that GOH treatment significantly suppressed the Ras/Raf/ERK1/2 signaling pathway in skin
tumor. Consistently, GOH-treated skin
tumors showed reduced expression of Bcl-2 and increased expression of Bax in these lesions. Thus, it was concluded that GOH inhibits DMBA/TPA-mediated skin
tumorigenesis by attenuating the Ras proliferation pathway and inducing pro-apoptotic state via inhibition of oxidative stress response and
inflammation.