Artemisia and Cancer 23-24 #1

Nargi, Clare; Connors, Daisy

Student Work

Artemisia and Cancer 23-24 #1

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Artemisia annua is a wormwood plant with active compound artemisinin that has been used in medicine as a treatment of malaria and fever. Previous research has found that artemisinin has demonstrated antitumor activity by affecting immunosuppression and cancer metabolism. The goal of this study was to determine if there are specific concentrations and time periods of A. annua and pure artemisinin solution exposure that lead to changes in T47D cell growth and investigate if artemisinin promotes degradation of ferritin in the cell, leading to ferroptosis. When T47D breast cancer cells were treated with pure artemisinin and A. annua tea extracts, the live cell count after 24 hours was approximately half of the control. Additionally, there were similar effects seen with MDA-MB-231 triple negative, or late stage, breast cancer cells. There were no significant effects seen on treated NIH/3T3 fibroblast cells. The concentration of intracellular iron was found to be more than two-times higher in the artemisinin and A.annua tea-treated T47D cells compared to the controls, alluding to the possibility of ferritin degradation by artemisinin. Future studies should continue to investigate artemisinin’s mechanism of action in cancer cells to validate claims related to ferroptosis.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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