Background
An extract of Ficus religiosa latex has been previously found to possess potent pharmacological activity with high antioxidant content phytochemical. The present research was conducted to investigate the chemo-preventive efficacy of latex extract on human breast adenocarcinoma MDA MB 231, human neroblastoma IMR 32, and human colorectal HCT 116 cell lines.
Results
The results showed that the latex crude extract induced cytotoxicity in all the selected cell lines with IC50 value 4.8 ± 1.13 μg/ml against the IMR 32 cell line. The cell cycle analysis results indicated the arrest and accumulation of cells at G1 phase in case of MDA MB 231 cells and HCT 116 cells whereas in the case of IMR 32 cells the arrest was in G2/M phase. The clear bands of fragments observed in DNA ladder experiments showed that apoptosis is induced by extracts in the cell lines. This could be correlated with the gene level expression studies on selected pro-apoptotic (p53 and caspase-3) and anti-apoptotic (Bcl-2, AKT) genes, which got upregulated and downregulated, respectively.
Conclusion
Based on the experimental evidence, Ficus religiosa contains phytochemicals with potent antitumor activities.
Plants from Ficus genus were selected for the present study to screen their cytotoxic activity against the chosen human breast cancer cell line MCF-7. Cells were seeded in the 96 well plate and were grown for 24 hrs ensuring the proper attachment and adequate growth of cells in each well, after which the plant solvent extracts were treated in five different concentration for 24hrs and triplicates were maintained. The evaluation was based on reduction of MTT (3-[4,5dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide) by mitochondrial dehydrogenase of viable cells, which gives a blue coloured formazan product, measured by spectrophotometry and the percentage growth inhibition as well the concentration at which the cells were 50% viable (IC 50 ) was calculated. The morphological changes at IC 50 were taken photographs.
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