The search for new chemotherapeutic drugs has increased, especially for those that have a natural origin. The monoterpene perillyl alcohol (POH) has been shown to exert chemopreventive activity in mammary, liver, and lung tumor models. It has also been used to treat a variety of rodent cancers, including pancreatic and breast carcinomas. In vitro data suggest that it may be effective against neuroblastomas and leukemias. This work evaluates the effects of the treatment of murine glial C6 cells with perillyl alcohol. In vitro, our studies have indicated that POH inhibits proliferation of the C6 glial cell line. POH was logarithmically diluted in concentrations of 30% through 0.0003% and showed inhibition cell proliferation of 78.36% in concentration of 30%; 69.87% in concentration of 3%; and 67.04% in concentration of 0.03%. In addition, the anti-metastatic activity of POH against these cells was evaluated using chick embryos as an in vivo model. The experiments have shown anti-metastatic activity of POH when the C6 murine glial cells were exposed to a concentration of 0.3 to 0.003% POH for 2 h, prior to its inoculation in chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane model. This phenomenon shows the possible role of POH as an in vivo anti-metastatic drug.

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