Mistletoe-Based Drugs Work in Synergy with Radio-Chemotherapy in the Treatment of Glioma and in Glioblastoma Bearing Mice.

Background: Extracts from (VE) are used in the complementary cancer therapy in Europe for decades. VE contain several compounds like the mistletoe lectins (MLs) 1-3 and viscotoxins and also several minor ingredients. Since mistletoe lectin 1 (ML-1) has been described as the main component of VE harboring antitumor activity, purified native or recombinant ML-1 has been recently used in clinical trials.

Comparison of microbial and transient expression (tobacco plants and plant-cell packs) for the production and purification of the anticancer mistletoe lectin viscumin.

Cancer is the leading cause of death in industrialized countries. Cancer therapy often involves monoclonal antibodies or small-molecule drugs, but carbohydrate-binding lectins such as mistletoe (Viscum album) viscumin offer a potential alternative treatment strategy. Viscumin is toxic in mammalian cells, ruling them out as an efficient production system, and it forms inclusion bodies in Escherichia coli such that purification requires complex and lengthy refolding steps.

Adjuvant Therapy Using Mistletoe Containing Drugs Boosts the T-Cell-Mediated Killing of Glioma Cells and Prolongs the Survival of Glioma Bearing Mice.

extracts (VE) are applied as complementary cancer therapeutics for more than one century. Extracts contain several compounds like mistletoe lectins (ML) 1-3 and viscotoxins, but also several minor ingredients. Since ML-1 has been described as one of the main active components harboring antitumor activity, purified native or recombinant ML-1 has been also used in clinical trials in the last years.

Aviscumine, a recombinant ribosomal inhibitor, increases the antitumor activity of natural killer cells.

Aviscumine, a recombinant lectin I, has been identified as an immunomodulatory agent within a new class of ribotoxic stress-inducing anticancer substances that have demonstrated efficacy in phase I/II trials. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the presumed effect of aviscumine on enhancing human natural killer (NK) cell antitumor cytotoxicity. To measure the effect of aviscumine on human NK cell cytotoxicity, chromium-51-release assays against K-562 cells were performed with isolated NK cells from the whole blood of 34 healthy volunteers.

Viscumins functionally modulate cell motility-associated gene expression.

In Europe extracts from Viscum album L., the European white-berry mistletoe, are widely used as a complementary cancer therapy. Viscumins (mistletoe lectins, ML) have been scrutinized as important active components of mistletoe and exhibit a variety of anticancer effects such as stimulation of the immune system, induction of cytotoxicity, reduction of tumor cell motility as well as changes in the expression of genes associated with cancer development and progression.