Tissue culture and animal toxicity studies of antineoplaston A5

Antineoplaston A5 is a mixture of small to medium size peptides and amino acid derivatives isolated from human urine. This report describes growth inhibition by Antineoplaston A5 of human cell carcinoma line HBL-100 and human leukaemic cell line Jurkat, and acute and chronic toxicity studies in mice. The inhibitory effect of Antineoplaston A5 on HBL-100 cells was tested at concentrations varying from 0.125 mg/ml to 0.5 mg/ml and at exposure durations varying from 24 to 96 h. The tests on Jurkat cells were carried out at concentrations varying from 0.1 mg/ml to 0.8 mg/ml and exposure durations varying from 24 to 120 h. The results from HBL-100 cells, shown as percentage of survival, were as follows: at 0.125 mg/ml 58%; at 0.25 mg/ml 14%; at 0.5 mg/ml 0. Exposure of HBL-100 cells to 0.5 mg/ml of Antineoplaston A5 for 24, 48, 72 and 96 h reduced survival to 55%, 10%, 4% and 0 of the control respectively. The results for suspension culture of Jurkat were as follows: The control cells showed a 7.7-fold increase in cell number during the incubation period, while the cells treated with 0.8 mg/ml of Antineoplaston A5 showed a steady decrease in cell number. At the end of 120 hours' incubation, only 1% of the cells was still viable. The growth inhibition patterns for dosages ranging from 0.4 mg/ml to 0.1 mg/ml were unique; instead of decreasing, the cell numbers in these flasks kept increasing, although at a slower pace during the initial 72 h.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)