Effect of Hydroalcoholic Extract of Ephedra major, Momordica charantia, and Resveratrol on Cytotoxicity and Caspase-3 Genes Expression Level in MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cell Line

Abstract

Background: To increase the therapeutic effect of drugs to combat diseases, combination therapy with current chemical drugs and new medicines derived from medicinal plants is necessary. Objectives: The present work aimed to investigate the effect of hydroalcoholic extract of two medicinal plants, Ephedra major and Momordi cacharantia (Carla), and resveratrol drug on cell viability and expression levels of caspase-3 gene in MCF-7 cell line. Methods: In this experimental study, the hydroalcoholic extraction of tested plants was done with a Soxhlet extractor. The MTT assay and real-time PCR were used to determine cell toxicity and caspase-3 gene expression levels, respectively. Results: The highest and lowest cytotoxic effects of plant extracts and resveratrol were observed at concentrations of 500 and 150 µg/mL, respectively. The highest level of the caspase-3 gene expression was observed after 72 h of incubation by different concentrations of plant extracts and resveratrol. Conclusions: It can be concluded that both plant extracts could influence cell viability in MCF-7 cells via the increase of cell toxicity and expression of caspase3 gene. Thus, these species could be used in the pharmaceutical industry.

Cell Toxicity Effect of the Extract of Medicinal Plants against Human Breast (MCF7 and KBR3) Cancer Cell Lines

“…Therefore, algae may have been used in cancer treatment and pharmaceutical industry. In our previous study, Ephedra major extract had been shown to influence cell viability and Caspase gene expression in treated MCF7 cell line (12). The activation and high expression of Caspase 3 gene have also been detected to influence the induction of apoptosis process in cancer cell (29,30).…”

“…Two penicillin and streptomycin antibiotics (Sigma Aldrich, Germany) from Passage 17 were used for performing all experiments under a humidified air atmosphere. MTT reagent was used to carry out the cell viability assay adopting the colorimetric method (11,12).…”