Abstract
Cancer is one of the major causes of death both in developed and developing countries. Recently the secondary metabolites produced by plants are being investigated due to their promising anticancer activities. Accordingly in the present study the anti-cancer potentials of Euphorbia hirta L., a well-known medicinal plant was explored for its anticancer activity. The methanol and aqueous extracts of Euphorbia hirta L. (EHA and EHM) were tested against Artemia salina nauplii for toxicity and MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 human breast adenocarcinoma cell lines for its cytotoxic potentials. Both the extracts EHA and EHM exhibited maximum toxicity towards Artemia salina among which the methanol extract was able to kill all the nauplii in its highest concentration. Excitingly, Euphorbia hirta L. extracts exhibited minimal cytotoxicity on normal cells (VERO) than in human breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7). In conclusion, the results suggest that EHM extract of the selected plant may have promising therapeutic potential against human breast cancers and may lead to the development of new clinical drug specifically against ER-positive breast cancer.
Highlights
Cancer is well-known as a multifactorial disease due to abnormal proliferation of cells and is one of the major causes of death worldwide
In the current study the anti-cancer potentials of Euphorbia hirta L., a renowned medicinal plant was explored for its anticancer activity
MDA-MB-231, MCF-7 and VERO (African Monkey kidney epithelial) cell lines were procured from National Centre for Cell Science (Pune, India)
Summary
Cancer is well-known as a multifactorial disease due to abnormal proliferation of cells and is one of the major causes of death worldwide. Treatment of cancer is challenging and it inflicts a severe burden on the public health system. Conventional chemotherapy is associated with anticancer drugs with low therapeutic index and results in severe side effects (Khandare et al, 2006). Recent evidences suggest that natural products are good sources for the treatments of human diseases. Medicinal plants have been used to treat human diseases for centuries (Sharma and Moin, 2020). According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) few nations still rely on plant-based treatment as their main source of medicine (Parasuraman et al, 2014). Chemotherapy seems to be promising where 65% of the drugs used are of natural origin (Cragg & Newman, 2005). Due to the above-said reasons, medicinal plants might prove potential to aid in the development of alternative therapy against cancer
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