In vitro anticancer potential of aerial parts of Ipomoea horsfalliae hook in different human cancer cell lines

Abstract

Ipomoea is an important genus that involves about 600 species of the Convolvulaceae family. Many Ipomoea species have considerable importance such as medicinal, ornamental, industrial, and food crops. Various species of the genus Ipomoea have been reported for anticancer activity as well. The objective of this study is to evaluate the anticancer activity of Ipomoea horsfalliae Hook and its active fractions on different cancer and normal cell lines and also to perform GC–MS analysis to find out bioactive compounds present. Aerial parts of I. horsfalliae were extracted with petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, ethanol, and water by using the soxhlet method. The cell viability assay showed that ethyl acetate extracts have more cytotoxicity to cancer cell lines MCF-7, Hep-G2, A549, HT–29, MOLT-4 and Hela with IC50 values 34.88 μg/mL, 42.70 μg/mL, 113 μg/mL, 173.68 μg/mL, 45.12 μg/mL and 39.54 μg/mL respectively, while it had no cytotoxic effect on normal Vero cells IC50 467.5 μg/mL. Ethyl acetate extracts were selected for fractionation to obtain four fractions and cytotoxicity was evaluated on MCF-7 cells and found that fraction 3 (F3) was the most active fraction with IC50 18.30 μg/mL. The GC–MS analysis of same the fraction showed the presence of Gamma-Sitosterol (10.6 %), Phytol (6.68 %), 2, 4-bis (1-phenylethyl)-phenol (12.75 %), Pyrrolidine 2, 4-dione (9.46 %), etc. These findings conclude that I. horsfalliae is a promising source of active compounds effective against cancer cell lines and hence we can farther used for the development of new anticancer agents especially for the breast cancer.