Investigation of cytotoxic and genotoxic effects of Inula viscosa plant extract on healty and cancer cell lines

Plant extracts have been widely used in traditional medicine for centuries. Plant-derived products play an important role in treatment or prevention of various diseases due to their antioxidant, antimicrobial, antidiabetic and antiinflammatory activities. Inula viscosa is a plant which belongs to the Asteraceae family and known as woody fleabane, sticky fleabane and yellow fleabane. It has been used in traditional medicine for many years, but its effectiveness has not been fully proven yet. The antiinflammatory, antipyretic, antiseptic and antiphlogistic activities of the Inula viscosa plant are known and it is used in the treatment of various types of cancer. However, the fact that herbal products such as Inula viscosa are easily accessible and thought that what comes from nature will always be harmless leads to unconscious consumption of herbal products and possible toxic effects. In this thesis, it was aimed to investigate the possible cytotoxic and genotoxic/antigenotoxic effects of two different extracts ( water and methanol) of Inula viscosa plant on healty lung (BEAS-2B) and cancerous lung (A549) cell lines. Within the scope of the thesis study, the possible cytotoxic effects of water and methanol extracts of Inula viscosa on both cell lines were determined by neutral red uptake method (NRU) and 3-[4,5-dimetilltiyazol-2-il]-2,5 difenil tetrazolium bromid (MTT) method. Also, it was investigated which extract had a better antiproliferative effect on the A549 cell line. In addition, both genotoxic and antigenotoxic effects against hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which causes oxidative damage were evaluated by single cell gel electrophoresis (Comet) at the non-cytotoxic concentrations. As a result of this study, while no cytotoxic effect was observed at the 1-100 µg/ml concentration range in both cell lines, cytotoxic effect was observed at the 250-1000 µg/ml concentration range. BEAS-2B cell viability is higher than A549 cell viability at the non-cytotoxic concentrations. Besides, methanol extract of Inula viscosa showed better antiproliferative effect on A549 cell line compared to BEAS-2B cell line. On the other hand, it was determined that, Inula viscosa had a genotoxic effect on both cell lines, no antigenotoxic effect on the BEAS-2B cell line, but methanol extract of Inula viscosa had an antigenotoxic effect on the A549 cell line.