Hypersensitivity of BRCA2 deficient cells to rosemary extract explained by weak PARP inhibitory activity.

Rosemary extract is used in food additives and traditional medicine and has been observed to contain anti-tumor activity. In this study, rosemary extract is hypothesized to induce synthetic lethality in BRCA2 deficient cells by PARP inhibition. Chinese hamster lung V79 cells and its mutant cell lines, V-C8 (BRCA2 deficient) and V-C8 with BRCA2 gene correction were used.