IN VITRO CYTOTOXIC AND ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITIES OF SOME PLANT EXTRACTS ON DIFFERENT HUMAN CANCER CELL LINES

Abstract

The present study was conducted to evaluate the in vitro cytotoxic and antioxidant activity of 22 crude extracts from 19 different plant species. Most of plants used were mentioned in ethnomedicine as having potential to treat cancer but they were selected largely due to lack of accurate information about their cytotoxic and /or antioxidants activity. Some of well known edible plants were also used as a reference for the unexplored ones. The cytotoxic and antioxidant activities were tested using the standard [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide] assay (MTT) and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazil (DPPH) test. The in vitro assay for the plant activity was determined using four human cancer cell lines: human liver carcinoma (HepG-2), human lung carcinoma (A549), human colon carcinoma (HT-29) and human breast carcinoma (MCF-7). The cytotoxic and antioxidant status of plants used in this study will be further discussed.