Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Science - Department of Zoology (Physiology Immunology)

The search for new anticancer drugs targeted cancer cells selectivelywithout side effects is an important task because of various side effects caused bychemotherapeutic drugs.Thus, our study was performed to assess the safety andanticancer activity of the Artemisia herbaalbaextract compared to the semisyntheticdrug Artesunatein mice. The oral administration of Artemisia herbaalbacaused single and double stranded DNA breaks leading to apoptosis of tumor cellsas revealed by the smeared pattern of genomic DNA through elevations of p53expression levels in conjunction with decreasing K-ras expression levels in a timedependent manner similar to Artesunateand better than Cisplatin. The apoptosis oftumor cells was further confirmed by the appearance of apoptotic and necrotictumor cells as well as the infiltrations of mononuclear cells into the tumor sectionsof the treated groups.Minor histological lesions were observed in the liver andkidney tissues sections of Artemisia extract group compared to the high histologicallesions observed in the liver and kidney tissues of Artesunateand Cisplatin groups

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