Abstract
Bulbine natalensis and Chorophytum comosum are potential medicinal source for the treatment of cancers. Chronic myeloid leukaemia is a hematopoietic stem cells disorder treated by tyrosine kinase inhibitors but often cause recurrence of the leukaemia after cessation of therapy, hence require alternative treatment. This study determines the anti-cancer effect of leaf, root and bulb methanolic and aqueous extracts of B. natalensis and C. comosum in chronic human myelogenous leukaemia (K562) cell line by MTT, Hoechst bis-benzimide nuclear and annexin V stain assays. The root methanolic extract of B. natalensis and C. comosum showed a high cytotoxicity of 8.6% and 16.7% respectively on the K562 cell line at 1,000 μg/ml concentration. Morphological loss of cell membrane integrity causing degradation of the cell and fragmentation were observed in the root methanolic extract of both plants. A high apoptosis (p < 0.0001) was induced in the K562 cells by both leaf and root extracts of the C. comosum compared to the B. natalensis. This study shows both plants possess apoptotic effect against in vitro myelogenous leukaemia which contributes to the overall anti-cancer properties of B. natalensis and C. comosum to justify future therapeutic applications against chronic myelogenous leukaemia blood cancer.
Highlights
Cancer is a major health burden and the second leading cause of global death accounting for an estimated 8.2 million deaths annually (Stewart and Wild, 2014)
This present in vitro study utilised the leaf, root, and bulb methanolic and aqueous extracts of both B. natalensis and C. comosum to assess the apoptotic effect of the two plants in myelogenous leukaemia K562 cell line
The methanolic and aqueous extracts of B. natalensis and C. comosum inhibit the proliferation of K562 cells possibly at the early stage
Summary
Cancer is a major health burden and the second leading cause of global death accounting for an estimated 8.2 million deaths annually (Stewart and Wild, 2014). Data on incidence and prevalence of CML in South Africa is lacking and limited as disease is often combined with the general category of leukaemia or other cancers (Stefan, 2015; Torre et al, 2015), the tendency of. Bulbine natalensis is a member of the family Asphodelaceae and a predominant species in the genus (Van Wyk and Gericke, 2000) This bulb-like indigenous soft plant is widely distributed in the northern and eastern province of South Africa. C. comosum is widely distributed ranging from Sierra Leone to Ethiopia It is a native plant from South Africa and has been found to be used in folk medicine to treat a range of ailments such as bronchitis, fractures and burn (Matsushita et al, 2005) Previous reports have shown the protective effect of C. comosum against liver damage in rodent model (Areshidze et al, 2016) and potential to stimulate intestinal microbiome (Bondareva et al, 2017). The root aqueous extract for B. natalensis (BRA) and leaf and root aqueous extracts for C. comosum (CLA and CRA respectively) were freeze dried for 24 h and stored
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