Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Cytotoxic effect of Turkish propolis on liver, colon, breast, cervix and prostate cancer cell lines

Ibrahim Turan^1,2 , Selim Demir³, Sema Misir^3,4, Kagan Kilinc¹, Ahmet Mentese⁵, Yuksel Aliyazicioglu⁵, Orhan Deger⁵

¹Department of Genetic and Bioengineering, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences; ²Medicinal Plants, Traditional Medicine Practice and Research Center, Gumushane University, 29100, Gumushane; ³Department of Medical Biochemistry, Institute of Health Sciences, Karadeniz Technical University, 61080, Trabzon; ⁴Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Cumhuriyet University, 58140, Sivas; ⁵Department of Medical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Karadeniz Technical University, 61080, Trabzon, Turkey.

For correspondence:- Ibrahim Turan Email: ibrahimtrn@gmail.com Tel:+904562331000

Received: 6 October 2014 Accepted: 17 April 2015 Published: 26 May 2015

Citation: Turan I, Demir S, Misir S, Kilinc K, Mentese A, Aliyazicioglu Y, et al. Cytotoxic effect of Turkish propolis on liver, colon, breast, cervix and prostate cancer cell lines. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(5):777-782 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i5.5

© 2015 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 total polyphenolic and flavonoid contents, antioxidant power and cytotoxic activity of ethanol extracts of Turkish propolis (EEP).

Methods: The total polyphenolic and flavonoid contents of EEP were determined by spectrometric methods. Antioxidant power and cytotoxic activity of EEP were evaluated using ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and MTT assays, respectively.

Results: The total polyphenolic and flavonoid contents, and FRAP value of EEP were 124.6 ± 1.5 mg gallic acid/g sample dry weight, 42.0 ± 0.8 mg quercetin/g sample dry weight and 311.0 ± 2.5 mg trolox/g sample dry weight, respectively. EEP exhibited powerful cytotoxic effects against the five human cancer cell lines. The highest cytotoxic activity of Turkish EEP was demonstrated on PC-3 cell line (IC₅₀ = 20.7±3.4 µg/mL).

Conclusion: The results demonstrate that EEP is a good source of antioxidant and a natural antitumor agent capable of reducing cancer cell proliferation.

Keywords: Propolis, Polyphenols, Cytotoxic effect, Cancer cell lines, Antioxidant activity