Antiproliferative effects of prenylflavonoids from hops on human colon cancer cell lines

Abstract

In recent years, interest in hop-derived constituents, especially for prenylflavonoids has grown, as they have a wide range of biological properties including antioxidant, anticarcinogenic and antimicrobial activities. Two main hop prenylflavonoids, xanthohumol and isoxanthohumol, and hop extract enriched in prenylflavonoids, were tested for their antiproliferative activities on colon cancer cell lines, HT-29 and SW620, and a noncancerous cell line, IEC-6. It was confirmed that both xanthohumol and isoxanthohumol inhibited cell proliferation, even at micromolar concentrations. For cell line HT-29, the IC50 was 1.2±0.9 and 16.9±0.9μmoldm-3 for xanthohumol and isoxanthohumol, respectively. Similar values were obtained for SW620 cells (2.5±0.2 and 37.3±3.2μmoldm-3). None of the pure prenylflavonoids that were tested affected the proliferation of the noncancerous cell line, IEC-6. The effect of the hop extract containing xanthohumol was also tested for antiproliferative activities on the cancer cell lines, HT-29 (IC50=3.1±0.2μmoldm-3) and SW620 (IC50=1±0.2μmoldm-3), and on the cell line, IEC-6 (IC50=65.5±11.3μmoldm-3). The results showed a similar trend to that for pure compounds, suggesting a possible future application of hop extracts in the pharmaceutical industry. © 2014 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling.