The Open Natural Products Journal

2013, 6 : 1-4
Published online 2013 April 5. DOI: 10.2174/1874848101306010001
Publisher ID: TONPJ-6-1

Evaluating the Anticancer Activity of Water Extract Against Human Breast Cancer MCF7 Cells

Binbing Ling , Qiulin Dong , Wanpeng Sun , Deborah Michel , Rubin Jiao , Ramaswami Sammynaiken , Yijiang Zhou and Jian Yang
Drug Discovery and Devel-opment Research Group, College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan, 110 Science Place, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5C9, Canada.

ABSTRACT

Hedyotis diffusa has been used to treat cancers in traditional Chinese medicine for many years. Recently, sev-eral anthraquinone compounds were extracted from Hedyotis diffusa and identified as its anticancer ingredients. These compounds are able to induce apoptosis in several types of cancer cells. In this study, we showed that the anticancer activ-ity of Hedyotis diffusa was highly selective, possessing high cytotoxicity towards human breast cancer MCF7 cells but almost no cytotoxicity against the mammary epithelial MCF12A cells. The Hedyotis diffusa water extract also elevated the energy metabolism in both MCF12A and MCF7 cells; but the ATP/ADP ratio was still maintained at about 1.0 in the MCF12A cells to avoid either apoptosis or uncontrolled proliferation. In addition, Sheshecaojing, a health product of He-dyotis diffusa marketed in China, gave a dose-dependent cytotoxic response against the MCF7 cells.

Keywords:

cytotoxicity, energy metabolism, apoptosis.