Opuntia wilcoxii biyolojik aktiviteleri

Opuntia wilcoxii, is known as a medicinal plant which grows in places with plenty of sun without the need for more water and adapts to all kinds of soil. It is a member of the Cactaceae family and originated in Mexico and countries of North Africa and the Mediterranean basin. In this study, There has not been any investigation related with the biological activitiy of O. wilcoxii, so our study is original in this issue. we aimed to investigate the biological activities of O. wilcoxii. Plant samples were collected from Gaziantep University campus in June 2013 and dried according to herbarium techniques. The methanol extract was prepared by soxhlet method. We utilized the MTT assay for evaluation the proliferative and cytotoxic activity of O. wilcoxii on two lung cancer cell lines, A549 and H1299. In addition, DNA protection activity was determined by pBR322 plasmid DNA assay. The results showed that the extract in low concentration (6.25µg/ml) had a good result on A549 while on H1299 had no good result. Both of the concentrations (1/10, 1/5 mg/ml) of O. wilcoxii showed protection property against to plasmid DNA damaging with UV and H2O2. As a result, we determined that the O. wilcoxii has good biological activities related with cytotoxic and DNA protection.