Comparative Study on Cytotoxicity Activity of N-α-Acylarginine Ethyl Ester

Abstract

Amino-acid derived compounds, for example N-α-lauroylarginine ethyl ester (LAE), N-α-myristoylarginine ethyl ester (MAE) and a 1:1 mixture of N-α-myristoylarginine ethyl ester with monolaurin (MAE + MLN) are examined for their cytotoxicity towards L929-Mouse connective tissue to explore their use as microbicidal agent, in comparison to sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) as an anionic control detergent. MTT (4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide cytotoxicity assay method was used to determine IC50 value. Cytotoxicity of MAE is found to be more toxic as compared to LAE, having IC50 value 0.052 mg/ml against 0.68 mg/ml of LAE. But MAE when mixed with monolaurin (1:1), showed less toxicity with IC50 0.89 mg/ml. These results suggest that a combination of MAE and Monolaurin can be a potential candidate for studying its microbicidal properties.