An Ideal Selective Anti-Cancer Agent In Vitro: I Tissue Culture Study of Human Lung Cancer Cells A549

ABSTRACT. Management of cancer is one of the challenging problems in medical practice as there are no available medical modalities that can se-lectively kill cancer cells without adverse effect on normal living cells or the functions of vital organs. Tissue culture of human lung cancer cells (A549) was used in studying the effect of agent, PM 701, to test its effect on the behavior of the cancer cells as compared with that of nor-mal cells (human skin fibroblasts). This new agent proved to be ef-fective in killing lung cancer cells through its effect on the nuclei, lim-iting the division of these cells, causing degeneration and apoptosis. Conversely, PM 701 exhibited nourishing effects on normal cultured skin fibroblasts; this implies that this agent may have selective cancer cell killing effect and reparative effect on normal dividing cells (fibro-blasts). The results showed that all tested concentrations of PM 701 in-hibited the growth of the human lung cancer cells (A549 cells), with maximum effect at medium concentration. There is immediate lethal ef-fect of this agent on cancer cells noticed at the first 10-minutes in live experiment. The present study represents the first experience in using PM 701 as a selective anticancer agent at tissue culture level