A comparative study of hemolytic and cytotoxic perspectives of saponin from some Egyptian sea cucumber species

Abstract

Background There are intense efforts from pharmaceutical manufacturers to discover novel approaches to find new drug candidates for cancer treatment. Sea cucumber is widely consumed in traditional medicine. Its anticancer potential is associated with the content of a bioactive compound known as saponin. The ultimate goal of this paper is to compare the hemolytic activity and cytotoxicity of six Egyptian sea cucumber extracts. The crude saponins were extracted from the body wall using ethanol. The hemolytic assay confirmed the presence of saponins. The cytotoxicity of extract from Actinopyga mauritiana, Bohadschia marmorata, Holothuria atra, H. leucospilota, H. edulis, and H. polii, was examined by two methods: (i) lethality assay in brine shrimp (Artemia salina) (BSA), and (ii) tetrazolium dye-based colorimetric (MTT) assay in human cancer cell lines such as colorectal carcinoma (HCT-116), epitheliod carcinoma (Hela), epidermoid carcinoma (HEP2), and human prostate cancer (PC3)). Results Hemolytic activity was observed in H. atra, H. edulis, B. marmorata, and A. mauritiana, while H. polii and H. leucospilota showed no hemolytic activity. The data in the BSA bioassay showed high and moderate cytotoxic activity of the body wall ethanolic extract. The more effective extracts were H. atra and B. marmorata based on cell lines. The average IC50 of H. atra extract against Hela, HeP2, HCT-116, and PC3 cells were 9.14 ± 0.8, 10.39 ± 0.9, 11.43 ± 1, 17.90 ± 1.5 µg/ml, respectively. Conclusions The data confirmed that Egyptian sea cucumber species are an exciting source for discovering anticancer novel drugs.