In vitro cytotoxicity of Alstonia scholaris (R.Br) bark on Vero and HeLa cell lines

Abstract

Alstonia scholaris R.Br is one of forest plants that have medicinal properties used to treat various diseases. This study aimed to determine the activity of in vitro cytotoxicity of Alstonia scholaris bark against HeLa and Vero cells. Alstonia scholaris bark was macerated with 70% ethanol and fractionated using n-hexane and chloroform to obtain n-hexane, chloroform, and ethanol fraction. All three fractions were tested using MTT assay against HeLa (cervix cancer) and Vero (normal) cells. The results showed that chloroform fraction was the most toxic to HeLa cells with IC50 (125.06 μg/mL) and followed by ethanol fraction (200.07 μg/mL), and n-hexane fractions (238.47 μg mL) respectively. On the other hand, ethanol fraction was the least toxic to Vero cell growth with IC50 (579.93 μg/mL), followed by n-hexane fraction (459.47 μg/mL), and chloroform fraction was the most toxic (396.24 μg/mL). It was suggested that ethanol fraction was the best fraction because it had the least toxicity to a normal cell, but still had toxicity to HeLa cell.