Investigation of cytotoxic activities of Terfezia and Picoa extracts and molecular effects on cancer cell lines

The cytotoxic and apoptosis-inducing activities of Terfezia and Picoa species were investigated on three different cancer cell lines. Human pancreas adenocarcinoma cell line (PANC-1), human breast adenocarcinoma cell line (MDA-MB 231), and human lung adenocarcinoma cell line (A549) were used. MTT assay was applied for detecting the cytotoxic activity of water, methanol, and acetone extracts, with exposure of each cancer cell line to concentrations of 400, 200, 100, and 50 μg/well. Hoechst 33342 (HO) and Propidium Iodide (PI) stains were applied for differentiation between necrotic and apoptotic cancer cells. Four target genes; BAX, Bcl-2, P21, P53, and one reference gene; GAPDH was included. Quantitative real-time PCR (QRT-PCR) was performed to analyze gene expression. In the results, cytotoxic effects of water, methanol, and acetone extracts from Terfezia claveryi, T. boudieri, T. olbiensis, Picoa juniperi, and P. lefebvrei were determined. The impacts were observed in a dose-dependent manner (400, 200, 100, and 50 μg/ml). HOPI double-stains revealed that the extracts effectively induced apoptosis rather than necrosis in the treated cell lines. p21, p53, and BAX genes were significantly (p<0.001) up-regulated in treated cancer cells by more than 3-fold changes. While the Bcl2 gene was significantly (p<0.001) down-regulated by more than 0.3-fold changes when compared to untreated cancer cells. Finally, the inhibitory effects of Terfezia and Picoa water extracts on the PANC-1 cell line, MDA-MB 231 cell line, and A549 cell line can be considered functional natural products.