Human Flower Project

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Corn Lily’s Black and White Magic

False hellebore, a mountain wildflower, has proven lethal, but scientists hope to harness its powers over cell development and use it to stop cancer.

Rocky Mountain Corn Lily (Veratrum californicum)

Photo: SW Colorado Wildflowers



The bane of sheep ranchers may lead to a breakthrough in oncology.

Veratrum californicum is a Rocky Mountain wildflower, variously known as the corn lily, false hellebore, and “skunk cabbage.” Several years ago, reports began appearing in the science journals that cyclopamine, a chemical compound in the corn lily, had shown some success in stopping “medulloblastoma cells, the most common brain cancer occurring in children,” from growing.

New research shows that this same compound may block the cell-signaling system of other brain cancers.

Cyclopamine seems to inhibit the so-called “Hedgehog gene” that directs cells to multiply. “Researchers have shown that radiotherapy fails to kill all cancer stem cells in glioblastoma” (brain tumors) “apparently because many of these cells can repair the DNA damage inflicted by radiation. The (Johns) Hopkins team suggests that blocking the Hedgehog pathway with cyclopamine kills these radiation-resistant cancer stem cells.” More than 10,000 people die of these brain tumors each year just in the U.S.

Thus far, the cyclopamine experiments have been conducted only on mice that have been implanted with human brain-cancer cells.

Cyclopamine

Image: wiki

Sheep ranchers have known for years about the power of Veratrum californicum. Ewes that ingest even small quantities of this plant during the 14th or 15th day of gestation have been known to give birth to deformed lambs. The terrible sign of corn lily poisoning is that offspring have only one eye (cyclopamine is named for the mythological one-eyed giant, Cyclops). The plant has posed a special problem for livestock in Southern Idaho and other parts of the Rockies, but more recently a lamb with this deformity appeared in Lublin, Wisconsin.

Rancher Jim Grajkowski said his sheep “had not been out west at any time, so they could not have been poisoned with the Corn Lily. The species most likely to have caused the damage was a close relative of Corn Lily, the False or White Hellebore (Veratrum viride), which ranges from New Brunswick and Quebec west to Minnesota, and southward as far as Maryland (but all the way to Georgia in the uplands) and in the Pacific Northwest.”

Cyclopamine, with its capacity to suppress the Hedgehog gene that signals cells to grow, is one powerful substance, capable of transforming “normal fetal and postnatal development, and, later in life, helping normal adult stem cells function and proliferate.” Quite a lot of voodoo for a Rocky Mountain wildflower.

The Johns Hopkins science team, led by Dr. Charles Eberhart, cautioned that the human brain research “is only in its early stages and there is much to be done before they can even begin to do testing with human subjects. They must first find out if it is possible for the drug to be delivered to the whole body safely and effectively or if it must only go into the brain. They must also see if there is any adverse effect on the healthy stem cells.”

Considering what this plant’s chemistry has done to sheep, we’d say so.

Students from Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory customarily parade

in “skunk cabbage” costumes on the 4th of July in Crested Butte, CO

Photo: mjcyrus

On the blithe (but still scientific) side, we’ve learned that the 4th of July celebration in Crested Butte, Colorado, includes a frolicsome Corn Lily custom. For the past twenty years, students of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory have dressed up in the big pleated leaves of False hellebore and paraded through town. Maybe they’ve been expecting huge things from Veratrum californicum all along (or maybe its leaves are just big and plentiful enough each summer around Crested Butte to cover a multitude of embarrassments).