Antioxidant, Anti-proliferation and Cytotoxicity Activities of Gossypium hirsutum toward Standard HepG2, A549, MCF-7 and U87 Cancer Cell Lines Compared to Huvec, 3T3 Normal Cells

Aims: Cancer has become a growingly medical and health care issue with no effective treatment modality. Chemotherapy besides existing drugs is associated with severe adverse side effects. The present study was aimed to explore the anti-proliferative/cytotoxic and antioxidant activity of Gossypium hirsutum boll crude extract on cancer cell lines compare to the normal cell lines.

Study Design: This study aims to explore the cytotoxic effect of G. hirsutum crude extract on human cancer cell-lines, compared with normal cells by using colorimetric cell viability assay and also the antioxidant activities of the crude extract were carried out by DPPH and FRAP assays.

Methodology: Fresh G. hirsutum bolls were gathered from the south-eastern of Iran. Soxhlet apparatus method was used for extracting the bolls. Complete medium was used to prepare six final concentrations (1-1000 μg/mL) for experiments. The cytotoxicity and antioxidant activities of the bolls extract were carried out by using colorimetric cell viability, DPPH and FRAP assays. All experiments were repeated in triplicate and analyzed by t-test. 50% cytotoxicity concentrations (CC50) value was calculated by Probit test.

Results: The extract performed a potent index of anti-proliferation/cytotoxicity effect on three cancer cell lines as demonstrated by the low IC50 values (2.72, 4.02 and 4.22 μg/mL) on human breast cancer (MCF-7), human lung cancer (A549) and glioblastoma cells (U87), respectively compared to the normal cells. Results also confirmed the best antioxidant activities of the crude extract. The selectivity index (SI) as the measure of toxicity ranged in a normal and safe level.

Conclusion: It could be concluded that the G. hirsutum boll extract displayed potent anti-proliferation/cytotoxicity index against cancer cell lines and great antioxidant power. Thus, experiments are essential to analyze, isolate and characterize its compositions for future in vivo studies.