A preliminary study of the antiproliferative properties of crude blighia sapida seeds extracts on lung, prostate, skin, leukemic cancers and normal human liver cells

The plant kingdom and its rich diversity still remains a potential source of varied bioactive phytochemicals with extensive applications especially in the mitigation of human diseases. In this study, the medicinal capabilities of Blighia sapida seeds are investigated by evaluating the antioxidant and antiproliferative activities on, lung, prostate, skin, leukemic cancers and normal liver cells using methods such as GC-MS, MTT and Resazurin based cell viability assays and DPPH/FRAP assays. In the MTT assay, the methanolic and hexane extracts all demonstrated a dose-dependent decrease in both Chang and Jurkat cell viabilities. The effective inhibitory concentrations (IC50’s) of the methanolic extract in Jurkat and Chang cells were 0.59 ± 0.15 mg/ml and 0.82 ± 0.05 mg/ml respectively and that for hexane extract were 0.96 ± 0.44 mg/ml and 0.79 ± 0.13 mg/ml respectively. However, the sub-fractions of the hexane extract namely: chloroform, petroleum ether and hexane base exhibited growth inhibitory effects only on Normal livers cells at effective concentrations of 0.54 ± 0.31, 0.45 ± 0.16, 0.36 ± 0.24 respectively in a dose-dependent manner. In the Resazurin assay, the methanolic extract reduced the viabilities of DU145, PC3, H460, A549, A431 cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner with calculated IC50 values of 14.22 ± 1.51 mg/ml, 3.17 ± 0.88 mg/ml, 1.95 ± 0.15 mg/ml, 1.56 ± 0.09 mg/ml, 1.3 ± 0.2 mg/ml respectively. Also, the hexane extract likewise inhibited the growth of DU145, PC3, H460, A549, A431 cancer cells with calculated IC50 values of 1.51 ± 0.59 mg/ml, 1.06 ± 0.27 mg/ml, 24.7 ± 2.2 mg/ml, 1.12 ± 0.42 mg/ml, 0.35 ± 0.04 mg/ml respectively. Among all the cell lines tested, both methanolic and hexane extracts demonstrated the most significant growth inhibitory effect on human epidermoid carcinoma cells (A431) at I.C50’s of 1.3 ± 0.2 mg/ml and 0.35 ± 0.04 mg/ml respectively. Overall, the highest inhibitory effects was observed in the non-polar hexane extract on A431 at 0.35 ± 0.04 mg/ml. GC-MS analyses of both extracts of the seeds revealed the presence of both polar and nonpolar phytochemicals with the identification of a known Glycoside; 3-n-hexylthiane-S,S-dioxide possessing anticancer properties. Sub-fractions of hexane extract (chloroform, petroleum ether and hexane base) demonstrated effective antioxidant potentials (EC50’s) at 5.08±0.33 mg/ml; 4.98 ± 0.3 mg/ml; and 19.02 ± 0.35 mg/ml respectively in the DPPH assay and 15.77 ± 0.78 mg/ml; 24.20 ± 0.27 mg/ml; and 87.03 ± 2.28 mg/ml respectively in the FRAP assay. Overall, the chloroform sub-fraction exhibited the highest DPPH scavenging activity with the methanolic extract showing the highest Ferric reducing potential. These findings suggest that crude extracts of B. sapida seeds may hold great potential as a natural product against squamous cell carcinoma and other inflammatory cutaneous conditions such as contact dermatitis, psoriasis etc., however further studies are required to improve its bioactivities.

Source: KNUST