Abstract 3830: The anticancer activity of a water-soluble extract from the leaves of the indigenous Southern African plant Tulbaghia violacea against a triple negative breast cancer cell line

Abstract

Abstract Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is difficult to treat and leads to a low five-year survival rate.In South Africa, a sizable percentage of the population still relies on traditional plant-based medicine. One of these plants, Tulbaghia violacea), has traditionally been used to treat cancer. In order to establish the usefulness of both methanol and water-soluble extracts from the leaves of this plant, extracts were used to treat a TNBC cell. Cytotoxicity assays were carried out to establish the IC50 values against the TNBC cell line. These concentrations were used to carry out assays to study the ability of these extracts to inhibit cell migration, invasion, as well as the effect of these extracts on the cell cycle and their ability to induce apoptosis in these cells. Finally, the antioxidant activity of these cells was assayed. The IC50 values for the water and methanol soluble extracts was determined to be 400 and 820 µg/mL respectively. Due to the high IC50 value and inconsistent performance of the methanol soluble extract, further studies focussed on the water-soluble extract. Treatment of the TNBC cells with the water-soluble extract led to an increase in apoptosis, with the extract causing approximately 82% of the TNBC cells to undergo apoptosis compared to only 32% of the normal breast cells. This extract also significantly decreased the ability of the TNBC cells to migrate or penetrate abasement membrane in scratch and invasion assays. These results demonstrate that the water-soluble extract from T. violacea leaves contains compounds that are able to preferentially induce apoptosis in TNBC cells while also inhibiting the ability of these cells to metastasize. The exact molecular make up of this extract will need to be determined on order to develop the extract as a potential therapy for TNBC. Citation Format: Rodney Hull, Zodwa Dlamini, Clement Penny, Mohammed Alaouna. The anticancer activity of a water-soluble extract from the leaves of the indigenous Southern African plant Tulbaghia violacea against a triple negative breast cancer cell line. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 3830.