Effect of onion flavonoids on colorectal cancer with hyperlipidemia: an in vivo study

Yongshan He,1,* Heiying Jin,1,* Wei Gong,2,* Chunxia Zhang,1 Acheng Zhou1 1National Center of Colorectal Surgery, Third Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, People's Republic of China; 2Department of Surgery, Jiangyin Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jiangyin, People's Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Objectives: This study aims to find the effect of onion's extraction on the colorectal cancer with hyperlipidemia. Method: We established a hyperlipidemia-subcutaneously heterotopic colorectal cancer orthotopic transplant model and fed mice a high fat diet and performing transplantation. Animal models were treated with capecitabine and/or simvastatin and low-, middle-, high- dose of onion's extraction and both tumor growth rate and blood lipid levels were monitored. Results: We found that colorectal cancer in onion's extraction groups was significantly inhibited, and the effect of high dose of onion's extraction was equivalent to capecitabine. Onion's extraction effectively decreased levels of apoB and TC. Conclusion: Our study established a hyperlipidemia colon tumor model involving subcutaneous colon translocation and orthotopic transplantation, this model was an ideal research model for mutual influence of hyperlipidemia and colorectal cancer. Onion's extraction could inhibit the proliferation of colorectal cancer; the function of the high-dose of onion's extraction was fairly to capecitabine, which provided a new direction in protecting and treating colorectal cancer. Keywords: colorectal cancer, hyperlipidemia, onion flavonoids, capecitabine, simvastati