Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Cytotoxic activity and apoptotic induction of some edible Thai local plant extracts against colon and liver cancer cell lines

Supattra Poeaim², Varipat Areekul¹ Pornhathai Putthawan¹

¹Faculty of Agro-Industry; ²Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology. Ladkrabang, Bangkok 10520, Thailand.

For correspondence:- Varipat Areekul Email: Varipat.ar@kmitl.ac.th Tel:+6623298526

Accepted: 17 November 2017 Published: 29 December 2017

Citation: Poeaim S, Areekul V.Putthawan P. Cytotoxic activity and apoptotic induction of some edible Thai local plant extracts against colon and liver cancer cell lines. Trop J Pharm Res 2017; 16(12):2927-2933 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v16i12.17

© 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 evaluate eight edible Thai local plant extracts (Camellia sinensis, Careya sphaerica, Cratoxylum formosum, Eleutherococcus trifoliatus, Ficus auriculata, Persicaria odorata, Schima wallichii, and Vaccinium sprengelii) against colon and liver cancer cell lines.

Methods: The 80 % ethanol plant extracts were screened for cytotoxic activity against human colon adenocarcinoma (HT-29) and human hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2) cells by MTT assay. The 50 % cytotoxic activity concentration (CC₅₀) was then determined. Apoptotic cell death was observed by inverted microscopy and DNA fragmentation using agarose gel electrophoresis.

Results: P. odorata and S. wallichii extracts showed strong cytotoxic activity, with the latter exhibiting more potent cytotoxic activity than the former. The CC₅₀ value of S. wallichii extract was 453 and 367 µg/mL against HT-29 and HepG2 cells, respectively. In contrast, P. odorata extract showed CC₅₀ value of 775 µg/mL against HT-29 and 1665 µg/mL against HepG2 cells. Microscopic observations indicate that the degree of morphological changes was concentration-dependent. The cell lines treated with both plant extracts displayed apoptosis.

Conclusion: The two plant extracts have high potentials for medicinal use in colon and liver cancer management. However, further studies are needed to isolate the active compounds responsible for the cytotoxic activities

Keywords: Edible Thai local plants, Cytotoxic activity, Apoptotic induction, Colon cancer, Liver cancer