Anti-proliferation properties of Egyptian medicinal herbs Moringa oleifera and Vinca rosacrude extracts against Human colorectal cells

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Biochemistry Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Egypt. (Postal address: 12613 Cairo University / Giza)

Abstract

Alternative cancer treatment attracted researchers in the last decades. Plants are enriched in their natural constitutes of various phytochemicals. These compounds include several secondary metabolites belong to different chemical groups. In this research, we extracted leaves of two Egyptian wild plants, Moringa oleifera and Vinca rosa with 80% ethanol then tested for their biological activity. The extracts showed strong antioxidant and anticancer activities. The antioxidants were evaluated using DPPH and reducing power assays. Moringa and vinca displayed potential antioxidants expressed by IC50 at 55.35 and 185.05 μg/ml, respectively. The present results also indicated that vinca extract exhibited high anticancer potencies against colorectal (Caco-2) with IC50 11.7 μg/ml, while moringa showed lower anticancer activity with IC50 at 25.32 μg/ml. Phenolic (TP) and flavonoids contents were evaluated and fractionated using the HPLC technique and the analysis showed that TP and TF were nearly the same in Moringa and vinca extracts. TP were 161.6 and 164.43 mg gallic acid equivalent/ gm and 137.84 and 141.8671 mg quercitin equivalent/ gm sample, respectively. These compounds may be responsible for the mentioned biological activities. Moringa oleifera and Vinca rosa might contains specific phytochemical induces apoptosis, for that we tested that gene expression of key pro- and anti-apotosis markers in Caco2 cells exposed to IC50 which the apoptosis induction was analyzed. We tested the gene expression of various signal transduction key markers controlling apoptosis process, such as p53, Bax, caspase-3 and Bcl-2 key markers. The RTqPCR-results showed that Moringa have potential apoptosis induction compared to vinca and respective control.

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