Shark liver oil increases cellular immunity and demonstrates anti-tumor activity. - GreenMedInfo Summary
The effect of shark liver oil on the tumor infiltrating lymphocytes and cytokine pattern in mice.
J Ethnopharmacol. 2009 Jun 6. PMID: 19505554
Shark liver oil (SLO) has been widely used in Scandinavian folk medicine as an anti-tumor agent. The object of this project was to confirm the anti-cancer effect of SLO. Using delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) response in normal mice, the optimal dose for stimulation of cellular immunity was obtained and injected intraperitoneally to the tumor-bearing mice. Cytokine pattern of splenic MNCs was tested by ELISA. The percentage of CD(4)(+) and CD(8)(+) lymphocytes in tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes was determined by flowcytometry. Also the rate of increase in tumor volume measured. Our findings indicated that SLO highly augments delayed-type hypersensitivity response against sheep red blood cell (sRBC) in mice. Furthermore, intraperitoneal injection of SLO to tumor-bearing mice could increase T-cell infiltration into the tumor and lower the increasing rate of tumor's volume. Also, it changes the cytokine pattern of the splenic mononuclear cells (MNCs) to Th1. Increase in IFN-gamma (resulting in enhanced cellular immunity) and increase in especially CD(8)(+) lymphocytes accompanied by a decrease in tumor size are among the signs of its anti-tumor effect. Accordingly, we suppose that SLO is a good candidate for further studies in cancer therapy.