Cytotoxic activity of some Thai vegetable extracts against a human breast cancer cell line

Abstract

The cytotoxic activity of some Thai vegetable extracts were determined by the Sulforhodamine B (SRB) assay [1]. Ten kinds of Thai vegetables, namely Centella asiatica leaves, Leucaena glauca leaves and shoot, Boesenbergia pandurata rhizome, Piper sarmentosum leaves, Morinda citrifolia leaves, Telosma minor flowers, Curcuma manga rhizome, Trichosanthes anguina fruits, Diplazium esculentum leaves and stem and Spondias pinnata leaves, were selected. These fresh Thai vegetables were divided into 2 parts. The first part was extracted by maceration with 95% ethanol for 3 days, filtered and evaporated. The other part was squeezed, filtered, and the filtrates were dried by freeze drying. All extracts were screened for cytotoxic activity against the human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) using the SRB assay. Only ethanolic extracts of M. citrifolia, P. sarmentosum and D. esculentum exhibited more than 70% inhibition at a concentration of 50 µg/ml. The ethanolic extract of P. sarmentosum showed highest cytotoxic activity against MCF-7 with an IC50 of 7.77 ± 1.83 µg/ml followed by D. esculentum and M. citrifolia with an IC50 of 23.73 ± 2.66 and 28.03 ± 0.85 µg/ml, respectively. Especially P. sarmentosum leaves may contain interesting cytotoxic compounds which are worth to look at.