Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Antiretroviral therapy and HIV-associated cancers: Anti-angiogenic effect of efavirenz on chick chorioallantoic membrane

Rosie T McNeil¹ , Clement B Penny², Margot J Hosie³

¹Anatomy Department, Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University (SMU), Ga-Rankuwa; ²Department of Internal Medicine; ³School of Anatomical Sciences, Medical School, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

For correspondence:- Rosie McNeil Email: rosie.mcneil@smu.ac.za Tel:+2771975 9167

Accepted: 5 October 2017 Published: 30 November 2017

Citation: McNeil RT, Penny CB, Hosie MJ. Antiretroviral therapy and HIV-associated cancers: Anti-angiogenic effect of efavirenz on chick chorioallantoic membrane. Trop J Pharm Res 2017; 16(11):2741-2747 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v16i11.23

© 2017 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the anti-angiogenic effect of efavirenz in chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM).

Methods: Fertile eggs of the domestic fowl (Gallus gallus, variant Domesticus) were used as the in vivo vascular test environment. Experimental groups were VEGF, thalidomide (negative control), efavirenz (test drug), control 1 (treated with diluent) and control 2 (no treatment). CAM photographs were taken using a microscope camera. CAM blood vessels were scored as either “present” or “absent”.

Results: There was association between treatment drugs and growth of CAM blood vessels (p < 0.05) as follows: control 1 – 100 %, control 2 – 67 %, VEGF - 83 %, thalidomide - 17 %, and efavirenz - 0 % (n = 30). Although efavirenz had absolute anti-angiogenicity and presented as a potential anti-cancer drug, there was no significant difference between the anti-angiogenicity of efavirenz (100 %) and thalidomide (83 %) (F = 1.000, p = 0.341).

Conclusion: Being a first-line drug in both HAART and combination treatment of HIV-1, efavirenz may be responsible for spontaneous resolution of secondary cancers in HIV-infected patients on HAART regimen

Keywords: Efavirenz, HIV, Cancers, Angiogenesis, Chick chorioallantoic membrane