Apoptotic Effects of Opuntia ficus indica L. Seed Oils on Colon Adenocarcinoma Cell Lines

Abstract

Opuntia ficus indica L. fruit (cactus pear) seed oil is used in traditional and complementary therapies for its numerous health benefits. The aim of this study was to analyse of the fatty acid content and apoptotic induction effects of spiny and thornless Opuntia ficus indica L. seed (CPS) oils. Spiny and thornless Opuntia ficus indica L. seed oils obtained by supercritical CO2 extraction method and analyzed by GC-MS. Different concentrations of almond oils were incubated for 24 h and 48 h with Colo-320 and Colo-741 cells. Cell growth and cytotoxicity were measured by MTT assays. TUNEL assay was used to detect DNA fragmentation in both cell lines. Linoleic acid was dominant fatty acid followed by oleic acid, palmitic acid and elaidic acid in both type of seed oil. In MTT, spiny CPS oil was found to be active against Colo-320 and Colo-741 cells with 1:16 dilution for 48 h. Also, 1:8 and 1:16 dilutions of thornless CPS oil showed significant reduction in the number of viable cells in Colo-320 and Colo-741 cells, respectively. The number of TUNEL positive cells were significantly higher in Colo-320 cells treated with thornless CPS when compare with control group (p < 0.05).We conclude that thornless CPS oil may have anticancer effect on primer colon adenocarcinoma cell lines. The effect can be explained by inducing apoptosis. Thus, they could be a potential novel therapeutic agent in colon cancer therapy.

Opuntiol Inhibits Growth and Induces Apoptosis in Human Glioblastoma Cells by Upregulating Active Caspase 3 Expression

“…A previous study also supports our results, they have reported apoptotic activity of extracts of opuntia ficus indica L against cancer cell lines using TUNEL assay. The plant belongs to the same family from which our test compound Opuntiol has been extracted and also possess anti-inflammatory activity (Becer et al, 2018).…”

Investigation of Antioxidant and Cytotoxic Activities of Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill. Fruit extract

“…In another previous study prickly pear cactus seed oil was studied for its anti-cancer activity against colon cancer cell lines. As a result, cell viability has been observed significantly in some colon cancer cell lines (Becer et al 2018). In addition, the anti-cancer activity of indicaxanthin, which is known to be highly present in the fruits of O. ficus-indica, on melanoma cancer was investigated by in vivo and in vitro methods and very successful results were obtained (Allegra et al 2018).…”

Prickly Pear Seed Oil Extraction, Chemical Characterization and Potential Health Benefits

“…Moreover, fatty acid content also differed among wild and cultivated prickly pear grown in Cyprus [ 16 ], and the main compounds of wild oil were linoleic acid that accounted for 55.9%, oleic acid 17.6%, palmitic acid 12.4% and elaidic acid 4%, while cultivated oil contains linoleic acid of 60.1%, oleic acid 15.6%, palmitic acid 12.3% and elaidic acid 4.1%. Among the two typologies, cultivated contained more linoleic acid compared to the wild species.…”

“…(The authors also found the inhibition effect of cell growth in cells that were treated with PPSO to be parallel with an increase of ROS in the cells, suggesting a ROS-induced cell death likely due to the pro-oxidant effects of the extracts). However, the PPSO was effective at inhibiting Colo-320 and Colo-741 growth [ 16 ], where the apoptotic effects of spiny (wild) and thornless (cultivated) forms of Opuntia ficus indica L. grown in Cyprus were studied against Colo-320 and Colo-741 cells for 48 h. Cell growth and cytotoxicity were measured by MTT assays. The spiny and thornless PPSO (1:16 dilution) were found to be active against the inhibition of Colo-320 and Colo-741 cell growth for 48 h. The author suggested that the inhibitory effect of thornless PPSO is due to the high linoleic acid content, which is a known compound with an anticancer effect in cancer cells.…”

“…The PPSO is reported to have several biological activities, including antioxidant in vivo [ 9 ] and in vitro [ 10 , 11 ], antimicrobial [ 12 , 13 ], antidiabetic [ 3 , 6 , 14 , 15 ], lipid-lowering [ 14 ], in vitro anticancer [ 12 , 15 ], anti-inflammatory [ 9 , 16 ], anti-ulcer [ 17 ] and UV radiation protection of human dermic fibroblasts reducing the cell death [ 18 ]. Based on the literature, the oil content in prickly pear seeds is considered low compared to other seeds and the extracted oil is commercialized mainly for cosmetics due to the high price resulting from the time-consuming and laborious process of production [ 19 ].…”