Cytotoxic and antiproliferative effects of hypericum perforatum, hypericum montbrettii and hypericum origanifolium species on A549, HeLa and NIH3T3 cell cultures

Although antineoplastic, apoptotic, antimetastatic, antiangiogenic and cytotoxic activities of Hypericum perforatum, official species, have been reported in many previous studies, related to cancer, in relation to cancer, there are no studies on the pharmacological activities Hypericum montbrettii and Hypericum origanifolium, among the other species. In this thesis, effects of Hypericum perforatum, Hypericum montbretii and Hypericum origanifolium were tested on A549 non-small cell lung cancer, HeLa cervix adenocarcinoma, and, as an example of normal cells, NIH3T3 fibroblast cells. Measurements of MTT, neutral red, soft agar colony formation and acridine orange staining assays were applied as methods. Cytotoxic and antiproliferative effects of all herbal extracts were observed in all cells examined. The effects of Hypericum montbrettii ve Hypericum origanifolium was demonstrated with this study for the first time. Although plant extracts were found to possess some apoptotic properties, it was determined that the antiproliferative effects observed are not mainly due to the apoptotic activity. All the mechanisms for the effects observed in this thesis experiments were discussed under the light of literature data. Key Words: Hypericum perforatum, Hypericum montbrettii, Hypericum origanifolium, cancer, proliferation, apoptosis