<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Plants have been seen to possess the potential to be excellent biological matrices to serve as a basis for investigating the presence of promising therapeutic agents for cancer treatment. Several successful anti-cancer medicines - or their analogues - nowadays in use are plant derived and many more are under clinical trials. Under current circumstances, the purpose of this work was to test aqueous and ethanolic extracts of five aromatic and medicinal plants from arid zones on some tumor cell lines. These plants, <italic>Cymbopogon schoenanthus</italic> (L.) Spreng<italic>, Crithmum maritimum</italic> (L.) Spreng<italic>, Hammada scoparia</italic> (Pomel) Iljin<italic>, Retama raetam</italic> (Forssk.) and <italic>Zizyphus lotus</italic> (L.) Desf., widely used in Tunisian ethnomedicine, were assessed for their phenolic compounds, antioxidants and anticancer activities in aqueous and ethanol extracts. Total polyphenols, flavonoid and tannin contents were determined colorimetrically and some of these molecules were identified using RP-HPLC. A significant difference on phenolic contents and composition were found among the investigated plants. <italic>Cymbopogon schoenanthus</italic> was the richest in phenolic compounds (approx. 72%) with quercetine-3-o-rhamnoside (approx. 33%) as main contributor. For all the tested plants, the highest antioxidant capacity was detected in the ethanolic extracts rather than in the aqueous ones. The highest antiproliferative potential was observed for the ethanolic extracts. <italic>Hammada scoparia, Retama raetam</italic> and <italic>Zizyphus lotus</italic> exhibited important antiproliferative effect that reached 67% at a 1% extract concentration. Taken together, the present study supports the potential development of chemotherapeutic agents from, at least, four of the five studied Tunisian ethnomedicinal plants.</p></abstract>

Plants have been seen to possess the potential to be excellent biological matrices to serve as a basis for investigating the presence of promising therapeutic agents for cancer treatment. Several successful anti-cancer medicines - or their analogues - nowadays in use are plant derived and many more are under clinical trials. Under current circumstances, the purpose of this work was to test aqueous and ethanolic extracts of five aromatic and medicinal plants from arid zones on some tumor cell lines. These plants, Cymbopogon schoenanthus (L.) Spreng, Crithmum maritimum (L.) Spreng, Hammada scoparia (Pomel) Iljin, Retama raetam (Forssk.) and Zizyphus lotus (L.) Desf., widely used in Tunisian ethnomedicine, were assessed for their phenolic compounds, antioxidants and anticancer activities in aqueous and ethanol extracts. Total polyphenols, flavonoid and tannin contents were determined colorimetrically and some of these molecules were identified using RP-HPLC. A significant difference on phenolic contents and composition were found among the investigated plants. Cymbopogon schoenanthus was the richest in phenolic compounds (approx. 72%) with quercetine-3-o-rhamnoside (approx. 33%) as main contributor. For all the tested plants, the highest antioxidant capacity was detected in the ethanolic extracts rather than in the aqueous ones. The highest antiproliferative potential was observed for the ethanolic extracts. Hammada scoparia, Retama raetam and Zizyphus lotus exhibited important antiproliferative effect that reached 67% at a 1% extract concentration. Taken together, the present study supports the potential development of chemotherapeutic agents from, at least, four of the five studied Tunisian ethnomedicinal plants.

Phenolic composition of some Tunisian medicinal plants associated with anti-proliferative effect on human breast cancer MCF-7 cells

The EuroBiotech Journal

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Plants have been seen to possess the potential to be excellent biological matrices to serve as a basis for investigating the presence of promising therapeutic...

Phenolic composition of some Tunisian medicinal plants associated with anti-proliferative effect on human breast cancer MCF-7 cells

Article Category: Research Article

Pubblicato online: 30 apr 2020

Pagine: 104 - 112

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ebtj-2020-0012

Parole chiave
Antioxidant capacity, antiproliferative potential, breast cancer, phenolic compounds, traditional medicinal plants

© 2020 Hanen Najjaa, Ben Arfa Abdelkarim, Enrico Doria, Abdelbasset Boubakri, Najla Trabelsi, Hanen Falleh, Hajer Tlili and Mohamed Neffati, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Phenolic composition of some Tunisian medicinal plants associated with anti-proliferative effect on human breast cancer MCF-7 cells

Article Category: Research Article

Pubblicato online: 30 apr 2020

Pagine: 104 - 112

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ebtj-2020-0012

Parole chiaveAntioxidant capacity, antiproliferative potential, breast cancer, phenolic compounds, traditional medicinal plants

© 2020 Hanen Najjaa, Ben Arfa Abdelkarim, Enrico Doria, Abdelbasset Boubakri, Najla Trabelsi, Hanen Falleh, Hajer Tlili and Mohamed Neffati, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Parole chiave
Antioxidant capacity, antiproliferative potential, breast cancer, phenolic compounds, traditional medicinal plants