Evaluation of Cytotoxic Effect of Betanin Nanoparticles against Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cell Line Compared to Doxorubicin

Abstract

Purpose: This study was aimed to evaluate the anticancer effect of nano sized betanin particles (betanin NP) on tongue squamous cell carcinoma cell line compared to doxorubicin (DOX) using cytotoxicity assay. Materials and Methods: Human tongue squamous cell carcinoma cell line (SCC 25) were cultured to obtain 3 groups, the first one was subjected to DOX and the second group was subjected betanin NP. The third group was not subjected to treatment and used as a control. Different concentrations of betanin NP and DOX were applied on SCC25 to choose the doses with high cytotoxic effects according to their IC50 using the methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) viability assay at 48h and 72h intervals. Results: In the current study, IC50 doses for SCC 25 cell line was determined to be 0.91±0.02 μg/ml, 0.37±0.03 μg/ml for DOX and 4.30±0.08 μg/ml, 1.39±0.07 μg/ml for betanin NP at 48h and 72h intervals, respectively. T-test for comparison between IC50 level in different groups showed that there was highly statistically significant difference between samples of different materials (p<0.001). These results indicate that higher doses of betanin are required to kill 50 % of the SCC25 cells in comparison to DOX doses. Conclusion: Our findings explained that DOX and betanin NP can induce cancer cell death against SCC 25 cell lines. DOX has higher cytotoxic effect than betanin NP according to MTT viability assay.