Evaluation of anti-cancerous, cytotoxic, genotoxic mechanisms via gene expression analysis of various extracts from Thermopsis turcica in HepG2 cell line

Nowadays, many traditional medicinal plants are extensively being used to treat different kind of cancers. Similarly, many species of Thermopsis have been used as a source of traditional oriental medicines and considered to be medicinal plants all over the world. Its many species are endemic in different regions of the world, for example, Thermopsis turcica (T. turcica) is endemic to Turkey. Its general anti-oxidant, antibacterial and anti-cancerous activities are evident, but no deep investigations have been observed in term of genotoxictiy and gene expression analysis, especially on liver carcinoma, HepG2 cell line. So, current study was designed to investigate the cytotoxic, genotoxic and apoptotic mechanisms via gene expression analysis of various extracts from T. turcica in HepG2 cell line. In MTT cytotoxicity assay, ethyl acetate extracts showed the highest cytotoxic effect, compared to other extracts. Methanol had more effect at higher concentration compared to ethanol. Water and hexane had the least cytotoxic effects. Depending upon the MTT results, cytotoxic and non-cytotoxic doses were selected as 200 µg/ml and 50 µg/ml, respectively. Ethyl acetate showed the highest DNA damage (22.33+1.52) at cytotoxic concentration. While least was observed in water extract (8.33+1.73; 4.33+0.57) at both concentrations, respectively. All groups were significantly differ (P > 0.05) from the control group at 200 µg/ml concentration. Up regulation of the p53, p21, Cyclin D1, NFKB, TRAIL-R1 and TRAIL-R2 was observed, Whereas, down regulation was observed in PCBP4, Bax, bcl-2 and bcl-xl genes at all concentrations of the all extracts. Kaspaz 3, 8 and 7 were also expressed at all doses of different extracts, except for the hexane and water, where they were down regulated. DNA repair genes were up regulated except at the non-cytotoxic concentrations of hexane and at both concentrations of water extracts. Various extracts of T. turcica, expressed the anti cancerous activity in the HepG2 cells and ethyl acetate extracts had the highest cytotoxic and genotoxic activity.