How HeLa Cells Help Researchers Looking for Cancer Treatment - Literature review Example

How HeLa Cells Help Researchers Looking for Cancer Treatment Introduction Cancer has for a long time been among thetop global killer diseases among human beings. Church and Regis cite the search for immortality in human beings through an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks who died from cervical cancer on 4th October, 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital aged 31. Cell samples were taken from Henrietta’s cervix to be used for research purposes. These cells were code named HeLa cells, a name coined from the first two letters of her names. Before her death, a researcher from Hopkins named George Gey had observed that the cells could be grown in a glassware in the lab and kept alive for an indefinite period of time. The cells grew wildly such that they wiped out any other cell lines that they came across. Many cells have descended from the original HeLa cells and still remain alive to date, over six decades since the death of Henrietta. The chromosome make up of these cells are complicated, otherwise, they would have been used in the advancement of human immortality. But HeLa cells have found a wide application among research works on cancer treatment. In essence, any substance that affects HeLa cells could guide researchers in determining the most effective treatment for cancer. This paper examines some of the research works aimed at finding the treatment for cancer or evaluating the existent treatment and the role played by HeLa cells towards the achievement of the intended goals. HeLa cells use to determine the nature of death of cancer cells Various research studies have been conducted to determine the processes involved in killing cancer cells. Studying how HeLa cancer cells get denatured has guided researches in pharmacology to finding substances that would propagate such processes and thus suggest possible cancer treatment. [6]-Gingerol is a component of ginger said to have anti-oxidative, anti-cancer and anti-hyperglycemic properties. Chakraborty et al. (22) undertook a research study aimed at exploring the effect of [6]-gingerol on HeLa cells in vitro, investigating both the autophagic and apoptotic deaths of cells. The [6]-gingerol extracts from ginger were introduced to HeLa cell cultures. This was noted to cause a change in nuclear and cellular morphology causing shrinking of the cells. The [6]-gingerol could have had an apoptotic effect by activating caspase 3 protein found in cancer cells. The apoptosis process that depends on mitochondria begins with changes in mitochondrial membrane. This research revealed that changes in the mitochondrial membrane leads to increased permeability which causes the contents of the mitochondria such as the cytochrome to be released hence initiating the apoptosis process. But according to Ito et al. (629), chemotherapy and other radioactive based treatment of cancer would have cancer cells die through autophagy as opposed to apoptosis, with autophagic cell death being programmed and an alternative to apoptosis cell death. From a similar study on HeLa cells, the research by Moon and Park (189) suggested that cancer cells could be killed through caspase-3 activation and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential. Li et al. (848) also note that cancer cells could be destroyed through the increase of capase-8 and the rupturing of mitochondrial membrane. Referring to this as lysis, Ito et al. (625), while determining how to select and specifically act on cancer cells, described the lysis process leading to the death of cancer tumor cells. HeLa cells played a pivotal role in each of these research studies as its culture was used to study the death process of cancer cells. Viability of selective action on cancer cells There have been attempts to isolate cancer cells so that appropriate action would be taken on them without influencing the other normal surrounding cells. With the possibility of this selective action on these malignant cells, researchers could thus develop novel strategies to treat metastatic or advanced cervical cancer selectively in human bodies. Appreciating cervical cancer as a common gynecological malignance posing serious health problems globally, Zhang et al. (478) sought to determine how cancer cells could be identified and characterized. The researchers selected breast cancer positive (Bcrpl) cells from parent HeLa cells through flow cytometry. The researchers analyzed the invasion capacity using the Boyden chamber invasion approach. From the results, it was found out that Bcrpl positive cells made up about 7% of the population with no significant morphological differences between Bcrpl positive and Bcrpl negative HeLa cells. Therefore, the Bcrpl positive populations among the HeLa cells are purportedly made up of cervical cancer cells. As such, targeting these cells could yield favorable prognosis in metastatic or relapsed cervical cancer patients. With a similar objective, Ito et al. (625) sought to find out the mechanism through which conditionally replicating adenoviruses, CRAds stimulate the death of cancer-specific cells. To achieve this, these researchers infected HeLa cells, prostate cancer, PC3 cells and fibroblasts with CRAds. This was regulated by tumor specific promoters, specifically, control non-replicating adenoviruses (Ad-GFP) and human telomerase reverse transcriptase promoter (hTERT-Ad). It was found out that hTERT-Ad plays an important role in inhibiting both the in vivo and in vitro proliferation of the malignant cells by causing autophagic cell death of the hTERT-Ad infected cells. This suggests the emergence of CRAds as effective cancer therapy tool due to their ability to multiply and lyse the infected cancer tumor. Ito et al. (625) therefore acknowledge CRAds as having more antitumor efficacy as compared to non-replicating adenoviruses. This research provided a strong rationale that supports the use of hTERT-Ad to selectively kill cancer cells with telomerase activity. This approach to cancer treatment was however found to have a major weakness in that the efficiency of adenoviral infection would be pegged on expression of adenovirus and coxsackievirus receptors, which has been found to be a rare phenomenon on cancer cells. Viability of herbal treatment for cancer With the discovery of chemo-preventive traits of some plant extracts in the recent past, there has been increased systematic search among various plants in trying to come up with new anticancer drugs (Chakraborty et al. 20). HeLa cells have played a critical role in testing the efficiency of the herbal ingredients in treating cancer. In their study, Islam, Kusumoto and Al-Mamun (375) tested the cytotoxicity of garlic which is used in many countries as food. Scientifically referred to as Allium sativum, it is said to boost immune functions due to its antivirus, antifungal, antibacterial and anticancer activities, with the organosulfur compounds from the herb said to inhibit carcinogen activation both in vivo and in vitro. Intact garlic cloves have been found to contain organic selenium compounds and steroidal saponins which have anticancer efficacy. The researchers needed a cancerous cell to test the efficacy of garlic. As such, after preparing the aqueous garlic extract, AGE, HeLa cells provided the testing target. Provided in liquid nitrogen to maintain best quality, the HeLa cells were cultured for three days to allow for growth. After concentrating the liquid extract from garlic, the HeLa cells were exposed to the liquid and the anticancer efficacy tested through direct cell counts. The results indicated that with 100 μL of AGE, 75% of the cells were viable after 24 hours, but increasing the dose to 500 μL reduced their viability to 5%. This therefore indicated that AGE has significant potential against cervical carcinoma cell line. A similar research has been carried out to determine the apoptotic effect of a quinine compound, p-hydroxymethoxybenzobijuglone, HMBBJ on HeLa cells. HMBBK from the leaves of Juglans mandshurica was introduced to a culture of HeLa cells with results ranking HMBBJ close to HCPT, an efficient anticancer drug in clinics, in its inhibitory effect. The quinine compound raptures the mitochondrial membrane and causes an increase in capase-8 and capase-3 like activities which are key players in apoptosis after 48 hours of treatment. This means that various herbs could be used to come up with appropriate treatment for cancer. Viability of inorganic chemicals killing cancer cells Other chemicals used in various industries have also been used on HeLa cell so as to ascertain the anti-cancer effect of such chemicals. Butylated hydroxyanisole, BHA is a synthetic antioxidant that has found wide application in the pharmaceutical industry and food preservation because of its assumed low toxicity. But Moon and Park (180) researched on the effect that this chemical would have on inhibiting the growth of HeLa cells or even its death. The HeLa cell line culture was prepared with BHA bought from the rightful sources. On introducing the BHA to the cell culture, the results indicated that BHA inhibited growth of HeLa cells. With 150μM of BHA, cell growth could be inhibited within 24 hours. Additionally, the apoptosis induced by this chemical was accompanied by the potential of loss of mitochondrial membrane and activation of capase. This observation on HeLa cells points to the potential of BHA as an effective anticancer treatment. Testing the effectiveness of suggested anticancer drugs and treatment methods In biological functional materials research, synthesizing anticancer polymeric materials and their biological applications has been a common phenomenon. But little work has been done to determine the viability of controlling cancer cells. Therefore, there is need to test the effectiveness of anticancer materials. Indeed, the research conducted by Guan et al. acknowledged the possibility of some cancer cells escaping apoptosis because of resistance to drugs hence sought to determine the efficacy of synthesized polymeric anticancer materials (3637). In their research, photochemical method was used to prepare a polymeric model of anticancer drug which was immobilized using death signal tumor necrosis factor-α TNF-α or proteins inferon-γ, IFN-γ. The chemical analysis was characterized using fluorescence measurement, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, UV absorption spectroscopy and electron spectroscopy. Just like in many other cancer treatment research works, HeLa cells were used where an analysis of their death pathways by cell-biology techniques guided on the efficacy of the anticancer drugs. This enabled the researchers to conclude that the surface co-immobilization using IFN-γ and TNF-α had more inhibitive effect as compared to free IFN-γ and TNF-α. The drug models were found to act through apoptosis. The HeLa cells in this study provided an appropriate guide in pursuance of IFN-γ and TNF-α co-immobilized polymeric drug as substances offering significant therapeutic potential for human cervical cancer. From a more generalized perspective, Anzai (1176) sought to understand whether administration of anticancer drugs together with treatment with radiation would be more effective than when each of the two is administered solely. In the research, ZSTK474 drug was used. The drug is orally applicable with a specific inhibitor of phosphoinositide 3-kinase that inhibits the proliferation of cancer cells. The study was meant to determine the effectiveness of this drug being administered for eight days, 24 hours after X-ray irradiation. HeLa cells provided the appropriate test target for testing the efficiency of the treatment. Using the Western blot analysis, it was found out that phorylation of GSK-3β and Akt was enhanced with the application of both methods but inhibited with the use of ZSTK474 alone. Therefore, a combination of X-irradiation with ZSTK acted more efficiently on HeLa cells thus exhibiting more therapeutic potential both in vivo and in vitro. Conclusion The deadly nature of cancer has propagated various research studies to find out effective treatment that would curb the resultant deaths in humans. HeLa cervical cancer cells drawn from Henrietta Lacks in 1951 and preserved in the laboratory have been used by various researchers on cancer treatment as in vitro cancer cell model. Indeed, the cells have provided knowledge on killing the cancer cells and the processes involved. Researchers have also used these cells in determining whether there could be selective action on cancer cells in humans, though the findings still indicates weaknesses in this approach. The effect of ingredients of herbs such as [6]-gingerol, p-hydroxymethoxybenzobijuglone and aqueous garlic extract from ginger, quinine and garlic respectively has also been tested on HeLa cells to determine their efficiency in treating cancer. This has been extended to testing other organic chemicals such as BHA. If these experiments yield a possible drug, the efficacy of such drugs would be tested on HeLa cells before administration to cancer patients. These varied uses of HeLa cells by cancer treatment researchers point out to their importance in finding a long lasting solution to the menace of cancer deaths among humans. Works Cited Anzai, K. et al. “Effectiveness of Combined Treatment Using X-Rays and a Phosphoinositide 3 -kinase inhibitor, ZSTK474, on Proliferation of HeLa Cells in Vitro and in Vivo.” The Official Journal of the Japanese Cancer Association 102.6 (2011): 1176 – 1180. Web. 20 October 2012. . Chakraborty, D. et al. “[6]-Gingerol Induces Caspase 3 Dependent Apoptosis and Autophagy in Cancer Cells: Drug-DNA Interaction and Expression of Certain Signal Genes in HeLa cells.” European Journal of Pharmacology 694 (2012): 20 – 29. Web. 19 October 2012. Church, G. and Regis, E. “Recipe for Immortality.” Discover Magazine 33.8, October 2012: 60 – 76. Web. 19 October 2012. Guan, Y. et al. “Pathway of Programmed Cell Death in HeLa Cells Induced by Polymeric Anti Cancer Drugs.” Biomaterials 32 (2011): 3637 – 3646. Web. 20 October 2012. . Islam, M. S., Kusumoto, Y. and Al-Mamun, M. A. “Cytotoxicity and Cancer (HeLa) Cell Killing Efficacy of Aqueous Garlic (Allium sativum) Extract.” Journal of Scientific Research, 3.2 (2011): 375 – 382. Web. 19 October 2012. Ito, H.et al. “Autophagic Cell Death of Malignant Glioma Cells Induced by a Conditionally Replicating Adenovirus.” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 98.9 (2006): 625 – 636. Web. 20 October 2012. Li, Z. et al. “Benzobijuglone, a Novel Cytotoxic Compound from Juglans mandshurica Induced Apoptosis in HeLa Cervical Cancer Cells.” Phytomedicine 14 (2007): 846 – 852 Web. 19 October 2012. Moon, H. J. and Park, W. H.” Butylated hydroxyanisole Inhibits the Growth of HeLa Cervical Cancer Cells via Caspase-Dependent Apoptosis and GSH Depletion.” Molecular Cellular Biochemistry 349 (2011): 179 – 186. Web. 19 October 2012. Zhang, S. et al. “Isolation and Characterization of Cancer Stem Cells from Cervical Cancer HeLa Cells.” Cytotechnology 64 (2012): 477 – 484. Web. 19 October 2012. . Read More