Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Anticancer potential and cytotoxic effect of some freshwater cyanobacteria

Tunay Karan , Ali Aydin

Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Gaziosmanpasa University, 60240 Tokat, Turkey;

For correspondence:- Tunay Karan Email: biyo_tunay@hotmail.com Tel:+903562521616

Accepted: 25 October 2018 Published: 01 December 2018

Citation: Karan T, Aydin A. Anticancer potential and cytotoxic effect of some freshwater cyanobacteria. Trop J Pharm Res 2018; 17(11):2183-2188 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v17i11.11

© 2018 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 anticancer potential and cytotoxicity of some freshwater cyanobacterial extracts on Human Colon Carcinoma (HT29), Rat Brain Glioma (C6), Human Cervix Carcinoma (HeLa), Human Lung Carcinoma (A549), Human Breast Adenocarcinoma (MCF7), Human Liver Hepatocellular Carcinoma (Hep3B) cancerous cells, African Green Monkey Kidney cells (Vero), and Human Amnion cells (FL).

Methods: Chroococus minutus, Geitlerinema carotinosum, Nostoc linckia and Anabaena oryzae were collected from different freshwater habitats and identified. Each cyanobacterium was extracted with methanol. Antiproliferative activities of the cyanobacterial extracts were evaluated by [3-(4, 5- dimethylthiazolyl-2)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide] (MTT) using HT29, C6, HeLa, A549, MCF7, Hep3B, Vero, and FL cell lines. Cytotoxicity was determined by lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) assay.

Results: The cyanobacterial extracts showed varying antiproliferative and cytotoxic effects on cancer cells. G. carotinosum and N. linckia had significant inhibitory effect on C6 cell lines with half-maximal inhibitory (IC₅₀) levels of 112.69 and 121.48 µg/mL, respectively. TGI values for G. carotinosum and N. linckia were 65.07 and 70.61 μg/mL, respectively. LC₅₀ values for these two cyanobacteria were 386.64 and 760.55 μg/mL, respectively. In addition, cyanobacterium A. oryzae displayed excellent antiproliferative effect on MCF7 cancer cells (GI₅₀ = 2.04 μg/mL). The extracts displayed the cytostatic effect on the cell lines.

Conclusion: G. carotinosum, N. linckia and A. oryzae exhibit significant activity on various cancer cells. Hence these cyanobacteria may offer promise as anticancer agents.

Keywords: Freshwater cyanobacteria, Anticancer, Cytotoxicity, Chroococus minutus, Geitlerinema carotinosum, Nostoc linckia, Anabaena oryzae