CHEMOPREVENTIVE ACTIVITY OF TWO VARIETIES OF FREEZE-DRIED COCONUT WATER AGAINST CERVICAL CANCER CELLS, HELA

Abstract

Coconut water is considered to be nature’s elixir. It is a refreshing beverage that can quench thirst, and it i s consumed as a health tonic, especially by people living in the tropics. As cancer prevalence increases, novel anticancer therapies are urgently needed, and the chemoprevention approach using natural products is gaining research attention. The goal of this study was to evaluate the potential chemopreventive effects of two varieties of freeze dried coconut water (FDCW) against cervical cancer (HeLa) cells. Both the MATAG FDCW and the Aromatic Dwarf (AD) FDCW varieties exerted anti-proliferative activity against HeLa cells with a inhibitory concentration of 100 µg/ml. After 72 h of treatment, observation under an inverted microscope showed typical apoptotic morphological alteration in HeLa cells exposed to MATAG FDCW, and features of both apoptosis and autophagy were observed in HeLa cells treated with AD FDCW. Fluorescence microscopy revealed the presence of condensed chromatin and apoptotic bodies in HeLa cells from both treatments. To evaluate the anti-proliferative activity over a prolonged treatment period, HeLa cells treated with each type of FDCW were incubated for 8 d. MATAG FDCW was able to continuously suppress HeLa cell proliferation for the entire experiment, whereas the effect of AD FDCW was not stable and the suppression effect decreased over time. These results suggest that MATAG FDCW has a better anti-proliferative effect than AD FDCW. However, both FDCW varieties demonstrated positive chemopreventive activity and should be considered as potential novel anticancer therapies.