Zoologist Dr Lawrence Williams, a research consultant with the Scientific Research Council of Jamaica, says he and colleagues in Germany have been able to produce an anti-cancer compound, dibenzyl trisulphide (DTS), from guinea hen weed (petiveria alliacea), which grows wild across Jamaica.

In an interview with the Jamaica Observer, Dr. Williams said he is ready to take his research to the next level - the use of the compound on mice induced with cancer and an investigation into the side effects, including DTS’s impact on the kidneys and the liver. The work is to cost an estimated US $150,000.

Petiveria alliacea, known by local names including Anamú, Garlic weed, Congo root, and Guinea hen weed, is a perennial indigenous to the Amazon rainforest and tropical areas of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Africa. It is native also in parts of South Florida. The plant is widely used in tropical herbal medicine (see Tropical Plant Database, Raintree Nutrition) and also as a veterinary medicine (for hunting dogs) and as a fungicide and pesticide.

A study in Brazil (Santos LM, 2000) found that in mice infected with Listeria, P. alliacea extract “up-regulates anti-bacterial immune response” by increasing levels of Interleukin-2 (IL-2).

Currently, PUBMED database includes 29 references to PETIVERIA ALLIACIA.

Five years ago Dr. Williams and his German colleagues published:

Biochim Biophys Acta. 2001 Aug 22;1540(2):166-77. Disassembly of microtubules and inhibition of neurite outgrowth, neuroblastoma cell proliferation, and MAP kinase tyrosine dephosphorylation by dibenzyl trisulphide. Rosner H, Williams LA, Jung A, Kraus W. Institute of Zoology, University of Hohenheimer-Stuttgart, Germany

ABSTRACT: Dibenzyl trisulphide (DTS), a main lipophilic compound in Petiveria alliacea L. (Phytolaccaceae), was identified as one of the active immunomodulatory compounds in extracts of the plant. To learn more about its biological activities and molecular mechanisms, we conducted one-dimensional NMR interaction studies with bovine serum albumin (BSA) and tested DTS and related compounds in two well-established neuronal cell-and-tissue culture systems.

We found that DTS preferentially binds to an aromatic region of BSA which is rich in tyrosyl residues. In SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells, DTS attenuates the dephosphorylation of tyrosyl residues of MAP kinase (erk1/erk2). In the same neuroblastoma cell line and in Wistar 38 human lung fibroblasts, DTS causes a reversible disassembly of microtubules, but it did not affect actin dynamics.

Probably due to the disruption of the microtubule dynamics, DTS also inhibits neuroblastoma cell proliferation and neurite outgrowth from spinal cord explants. Related dibenzyl compounds with none, one, or two sulphur atoms were found to be significantly less effective. These data confirmed that the natural compound DTS has a diverse spectrum of biological properties, including cytostatic and neurotoxic actions in addition to immunomodulatory activities.

Others report that the plant contains a chemical which induces cell differentiation (Mata-Greenwood E, 2001).

In 2004, Dr. Williams and the German scientists tested 60 natural products from the herbals groups of “artemisinins, coumarins, flavonoids, tannins, tetrahydroberberine alkaloids, tetracyclic triterpenes, tetranortriterpenoids and polysulphides” against “the human SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cell line” (Neuroblastoma is one of the most common solid tumours of early childhood usually found in babies or young children.) Dibenzyl trisulphide proved to be “the most effective anti-proliferative/cytotoxic compound” screened.

Sources: Local scientist on brink of cancer cure breakthrough
BY PETRE WILLIAMS Observer staff reporter. Sunday, June 11, 2006

Missouri Botanical Gardens database entry: Petiveria alliacea L.

US Department of Agriculture
University of South Florida Institute for Systemic Botany