Abstract
Commonly called the Mexican prickly poppy, Argemone mexicana is a stress-resistant member of the Papaveraceae family of plants that has been used in traditional medicine for centuries by indigenous communities in Mexico and Western parts of the United States. This plant has been exploited to treat a wide variety of ailments, with reported antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, as well as cytotoxic effects against some human cancer cell lines. Due to its various therapeutic uses and its abundance of secondary metabolites, A. mexicana has great potential as a drug discovery candidate. Herein, the germination conditions of A. mexicana are described and the cytotoxic activities of different parts (seeds, leaves, inner vs. outer roots) of the plant from methanol or hexane extracts are preliminarily characterized against cells of seven unique organisms. When comparing 1 mg of each sample normalized to background solvent alone, A. mexicana methanol outer root and leaf extracts possessed the strongest antimicrobial activity, with greatest effects against the Gram-positive bacteria tested, and less activity against the Gram-negative bacteria and fungi tested. Additionally, using the MTT colorimetric assay, the outer root methanol and seed hexane extracts displayed pronounced inhibitory effects against human colon cancer cells. Quantification of c-MYC (oncogene) and APC (tumor suppressor) mRNA levels help elucidate how the A. mexicana root methanol extract may be affecting colon cancer cells. After ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry and subsequent nuclear magnetic resonance analysis of the root and leaf methanol fractions, two main antibacterial compounds, chelerythrine and berberine, have been identified. The roots were found to possess both phytocompounds, while the leaf lacked chelerythrine. These data highlight the importance of plants as an invaluable pharmaceutical resource at a time when antimicrobial and anticancer drug discovery has plateaued.
Highlights
According to the World Health Organization, infectious diseases and cancers of the lower respiratory system account for four of the top ten global causes of death [1]
In an attempt to increase the percentage of germination for stock seed maintenance, seeds were treated with solutions of either 100 mg/L or 1,000 mg/L of the phytohormone gibberellic acid (GA) or with a control solution
Preliminary results indicate that outer root methanol extracts possess the greatest antimicrobial activity, with largest effects against the Gram-positive bacteria tested (S. aureus and B. cereus) for most extracts (Fig 2)
Summary
According to the World Health Organization, infectious diseases (lower respiratory illnesses, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis) and cancers of the lower respiratory system account for four of the top ten global causes of death [1]. Traditional medications to treat such diseases include antimicrobial drugs for infectious illnesses and chemotherapy or targeted drug therapy for cancers. While there was a surge in antimicrobial and anticancer drug discovery in the mid-twentieth century, more recently, the development of such drugs has sharply declined. This problem is exemplified with antibiotic medications, where nine new classes of drugs were deployed between 1940 and 1960; while from 1970–2005, only two new classes of antibiotics were released [2]. The need for new antimicrobial and anticancer treatments is at the forefront of modern healthcare today
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