Recently, metal nanoparticles have been getting great medical and social interests due to their potential physico-chemical properties such as higher affinity, low molecular weight, and larger surface area. The biosynthesized gold and silver nanoparticles are spherical, triangular in shape with an average size of 24-150 nm as reported in our earlier studies. The biological properties of synthesized gold and silver nanoparticles are demonstrated in this paper. The different in vitro assays such as MTT, flow cytometry, and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) techniques were used to evaluate the in vitro anticancer properties of synthesized metal nanoparticles. The biosynthesized gold and silver nanoparticles have shown reduced cell viability and increased cytotoxicity in HCT-116 colon cancer cells with IC50 concentration of 200 and 100 μg/ml, respectively. The flow cytometry experiments revealed that the IC50 concentrations of gold and silver nanoparticle-treated cells that have significant changes were observed in the sub-G1 cell cycle phase compared with the positive control. Additionally, the relative messenger RNA (mRNA) gene expressions of HCT-116 cells were studied by RT-qPCR techniques. The pro-apoptotic genes such as PUMA (++), Caspase-3 (+), Caspase-8 (++), and Caspase-9 (++) were upregulated in the treated HCT-116 cells compared with cisplatin. Overall, these findings have proved that the synthesized gold and silver nanoparticles could be potent anti-colon cancer drugs.

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Luvunga scandens belongs to the family of Rutaceae which usually inhabit tropical and moist environment. This plant is known as ‘Mengkurat Jakun’ among locals and used traditionally to treat fever and fatigue via decoction. The aim of this study was to investigate the cytotoxic activity of the leaves and stems extracts of L. scandens extract. Extracts of the leaves and stems were obtained from sequential extraction procedures by various organic solvents. All extracts were subjected to cytotoxic study by 3-(4, 5-dimethylthaizol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. In in vitro cytotoxicity assay, all L. scandens extracts exhibited cytotoxicity against human breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7) and human lung adenocarcinoma (A549) cell lines. The IC50 values of dichloromethane and methanol extracts from the leaves of L. scandens against MCF-7 cell line were 62.5 µg/mL and 88.0 µg/mL, respectively, whereas IC50 of methanol extract from stem was 81.0 µg/mL. All extracts were less active against A549 cell line where IC50 value were not be determined. The present findings revealed the potential of L. scandens as a cytotoxic agent against MCF-7 cell line. However, further studies should be planned to evaluate role of the plant in cytotoxic activity.

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Plant-derived triterpenoids commonly possesses biological properties such as anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, anti-viral and anti-cancer. Luvunga scandens is one of the plant that produced triterpenoids. The aims of the study was to analyze cell cycle profile and to determine the expression of p53 unregulated modulator of apoptosis (PUMA), caspase-8 and caspase-9 genes at mRNA level in MCF-7 cell line treated with two triterpenoids, flindissol (1) and 3-oxotirucalla-7,24-dien-21-oic-acid (2) isolated from L. scandens. The compounds were tested for cell cycle analysis using flow cytometer and mRNA expression level using quantitative RT-PCR. The number of MCF-7 cells population which distributed in Sub G 1 phase after treated with compound 1 and 2 were 7.7 and 9.3% respectively. The evaluation of the expression of genes showed that both compounds exhibited high level of expression of PUMA, caspase-8 and caspase-9 as normalized to β-actin via activation of those genes. In summary, the isolated compounds of L. scandens plant showed promising anticancer properties in MCF-7 cell lines.