Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Johannesburg (Kingsway Campus), P.O. Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa.
Department of Consumer Science, University of South Africa (Florida Campus), Private Bag 1, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa.
Sci Rep. 2020 Jul 31;10(1):12924. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-69722-4.
Cancer is an enormous burden of disease globally. Today, more people die from cancer than a combination of several diseases. And in females, breast and cervical malignancies remain the most common types. Currently, cervical and breast cancer are the most diagnosed gynecological cancer type amongst black females in the Southern Sahara while amongst males prostate cancer is on the upward trend. With many of them still dependent on medicinal plants as a form of therapy and the need to identify new therapeutic agents, we have identified a commonly used medicinal plant Tulbaghia violacea Harv. commonly known as Itswele lomlambo (Xhosa), wilde knoffel (Afrikaans) and Isihaqa (zulu) to evaluate its anticancer properties at a molecular biology level. In this study, we evaluated the molecular mechanism of T. violacea extracts in regulating cell death in various cancer cell lines. To achieve this, T. violacea was collected, dried before crushing into a fine ground powder. Three organic solvents namely, methanol, hexane, and butanol at 10 g per 100 mL were used as extraction solvents. Each cell line was treated with varying concentrations of the plant extract to identify the half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50). The IC 50 was later used to analyse if the extracts were inducing apoptosis using annexin V analysis. Furthermore, the molecular mechanisms by which apoptosis was induced was analysed by qPCR, western blots. All three extracts exhibited anticancer activity with the most cytotoxic being methanol extract. p53 expression was significantly increased in treated cells that correlated with increased caspase activity. The results point to possible activation of apoptosis following treatment with hexane extracts.
癌症是全球范围内的一个巨大疾病负担。如今，死于癌症的人数超过了几种疾病的总和。在女性中，乳腺癌和宫颈癌仍然是最常见的类型。目前，撒哈拉以南非洲的黑人女性中，宫颈癌和乳腺癌是最常见的妇科癌症类型，而在男性中，前列腺癌的发病率呈上升趋势。由于许多人仍然依赖药用植物作为治疗方法，并且需要识别新的治疗剂，我们已经确定了一种常用的药用植物 Tulbaghia violacea Harv. 通常被称为 Itswele lomlambo（科萨语）、wilde knoffel（南非荷兰语）和 Isihaqa（祖鲁语），以在分子生物学水平上评估其抗癌特性。在这项研究中，我们评估了 T. violacea 提取物在调节各种癌细胞系细胞死亡的分子机制。为此，收集了 T. violacea，干燥后粉碎成细粉。使用三种有机溶剂，即甲醇、己烷和丁醇，每 100 毫升用 10 克作为提取溶剂。用不同浓度的植物提取物处理每种细胞系，以确定半最大抑制浓度 (IC50)。后来使用 IC50 分析提取物是否通过 Annexin V 分析诱导细胞凋亡。此外，通过 qPCR、western blot 分析了诱导细胞凋亡的分子机制。三种提取物均表现出抗癌活性，其中甲醇提取物的细胞毒性最强。用处理过的细胞中 p53 表达显著增加，与 caspase 活性增加相关。结果表明，用己烷提取物处理后可能会激活细胞凋亡。
