Abstract
BackgroundSome species of the Ficus genus show pharmacological activity, including antiproliferative activity, in cell lines of several cancer Types. ficus crocata is distributed in Mexico and used in traditional medicine, as it is believed to possess anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antioxidant properties. However, as of yet, there are no scientific reports on its biological activity. This study aims to evaluate the phytochemical profile of F. crocata leaf extracts and their effects on breast cancer MDA-MB-231 cells proliferation. Moreover, the study aims to unearth possible mechanisms involved in the decrease of cell proliferation.MethodsThe extracts were obtained by the maceration of leaves with the solvents hexane, dichloromethane, and acetone. The phytochemical profile of the extracts was determined using gas chromatography coupled with mass analysis. Cell proliferation, apoptosis, and cell cycle analysis in MDA-MB-231 cells were determined using a Crystal violet assay, MTT assay, and Annexin-V/PI assay using flow cytometry. The data were analyzed using ANOVA and Dunnett’s test.ResultsThe hexane (Hex-EFc), dichloromethane (Dic-EFc), and acetone (Ace-EFc) extracts of F. crocata decreased the proliferation of MDA-MB-231 cells, with Dic-EFc having the strongest effect. Dic-EFc was fractioned and its antiproliferative activity was potentiated, which enhanced its ability to induce apoptosis in MDA-MB-231 cells, as well as increased p53, procaspase-8, and procaspase-3 expression.ConclusionsThis study provides information on the biological activity of F. crocata extracts and suggests their potential use against triple-negative breast cancer.
Highlights
Some species of the Ficus genus show pharmacological activity, including antiproliferative activity, in cell lines of several cancer Types. ficus crocata is distributed in Mexico and used in traditional medicine, as it is believed to possess anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antioxidant properties
Among the different drugs used in cancer, many of these are derived from plants and some are utilized in their natural form or with structural modifications, such as polyphenols and flavonoids, which, in cancer cells, have demonstrated the ability to induce apoptosis [12,13,14,15]
This study aimed to evaluate the phytochemical profile of leaf extracts of F. crocata and the effect of the exposure of breast cancer cells MDA-MB-231 to these extracts
Summary
Some species of the Ficus genus show pharmacological activity, including antiproliferative activity, in cell lines of several cancer Types. ficus crocata is distributed in Mexico and used in traditional medicine, as it is believed to possess anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antioxidant properties. This study aims to evaluate the phytochemical profile of F. crocata leaf extracts and their effects on breast cancer MDA-MB-231 cells proliferation. Several studies have reported that some species of Ficus possess pharmacological activities, such as antioxidant [20, 22,23,24,25,26], antimicrobial [26,27,28,29], antiviral [30,31,32], anti-inflammatory [33,34,35,36], antiparasitic [20, 37], antidiabetic [25, 38,39,40,41,42], antiproliferative [28, 43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53], and cytotoxic activities [32, 53,54,55,56,57]. This study aimed to evaluate the phytochemical profile of leaf extracts of F. crocata and the effect of the exposure of breast cancer cells MDA-MB-231 to these extracts. Cell proliferation and the possible mechanisms involved in the decrease of proliferation, such as apoptosis and cell cycle arrest, were investigated
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