Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Ghana, Legon P.O. Box LG 54, Ghana.
West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, University of Ghana, Legon P.O. Box LG 54, Ghana.
Biosensors (Basel). 2019 Mar 20;9(1):45. doi: 10.3390/bios9010045.
bioactive compounds have been shown to contain antioxidant properties. The extracts from the same plant are used in traditional medical practices to treat various diseases with impressive outcomes. In this study, ionic mobility in cells in the presence of seed extracts was monitored using electrochemical detection methods to link cell death to ionic imbalance. Cells treated with ethanol, methanol, and water extracts were studied using cyclic voltammetry and cell counting to correlate electrochemical behavior and cell viability, respectively. The results were compared with cells treated with pore-forming Amphotericin b (Amp b), as well as Fluconazole (Flu) and the antimicrobial drug Rifampicin (Rif). The seed water extract (SWE) revealed higher anodic peak current with 58% cell death. Seed methanol extract (SME) and seed ethanol extract (SEE) recorded 31% and 22% cell death, respectively. Among the three control drugs, Flu revealed the highest cell death of about 64%, whereas Amp b and Rif exhibited cell deaths of 35% and 16%, respectively, after 8 h of cell growth. It was observed that similar to SWE, there was an increase in the anodic peak current in the presence of different concentrations of Amp b, which also correlated with enhanced cell death. It was concluded from this observation that Amp b and SWE might follow similar mechanisms to inhibit cell growth. Thus, the individual bioactive compounds from the water extracts of seeds could further be purified and tested to validate their potential therapeutic application. The strategy to link electrochemical behavior to biochemical responses could be a simple, fast, and robust screening technique for new drug targets and to understand the mechanism of action of such drugs against disease models.
生物活性化合物已被证明具有抗氧化特性。同一植物的提取物被用于传统医学实践中，以令人印象深刻的结果治疗各种疾病。在这项研究中，使用电化学检测方法监测细胞中离子的迁移率，以将细胞死亡与离子失衡联系起来。使用循环伏安法和细胞计数法研究了用乙醇、甲醇和水提取物处理的细胞，分别将电化学行为和细胞活力相关联。将结果与用孔形成两性霉素 B（Amp b）以及氟康唑（Flu）和抗菌药物利福平（Rif）处理的细胞进行比较。种子水提取物（SWE）显示出较高的阳极峰电流，导致 58%的细胞死亡。种子甲醇提取物（SME）和种子乙醇提取物（SEE）分别记录到 31%和 22%的细胞死亡。在三种对照药物中，Flu 导致最高的细胞死亡约 64%，而 Amp b 和 Rif 在细胞生长 8 小时后分别导致 35%和 16%的细胞死亡。观察到类似于 SWE，在存在不同浓度的 Amp b 时，阳极峰电流增加，这也与增强的细胞死亡相关。从这个观察结果可以得出结论，Amp b 和 SWE 可能遵循类似的机制来抑制细胞生长。因此，种子水提取物中的单个生物活性化合物可以进一步纯化并进行测试，以验证其潜在的治疗应用。将电化学行为与生化反应联系起来的策略可能是一种简单、快速且强大的新药物靶点筛选技术，并有助于理解此类药物对疾病模型的作用机制。
