Initial studies on cytotoxicity by the research team show that CBD has cytotoxic activity on a variety of canine cancer cell lines at modest concentrations in the laboratory. These effects cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, within a very short time frame, suggesting a discrete mechanism.
We have completed a lot of the proposed work related to the effects of CBD on cell death an autophagy and the upregulation of the MAP kinase pathway which appears to be involved, however the main mechanism of apoptosis has not been elucidated which may just be directly related to the autophagy induction. This is a global response in all of the cell lines and has real implication for us to look at other G protein signaling which is not within the scope of this project. The other area that we were in the middle of investigating is the induction of mitochondrial toxicity before the COVID epidemic hit. Once we are back up and running in the laboratory, we will be looking into mitochondrial insult using some standard assays including DHR free radical damage and mitochondrial permeability testing. This will complete the project and we are hoping it will lead to further publication. That said, we have completed the other aspect of the project related to doxorubicin co-treatment and have also done vincristine co- treatment showing some synergy between vincristine and CBD in the cell culture system.
Mid- End-Year-1 Research Update Dr. Wakshlag for CBD in cancer treatment.
