Evaluation of the cytotoxic activity and types of death in human cells strain after treatment with herbal products derived from Baccharis trimera (Less.) DC

Abstract

Cancer is a disease which affects people all around the world. Despite the advances in drug development there is still a lack of antineoplastic agents. Medicinal plants are important sources to discovery new therapies because they have a lot of kind of chemical models. Baccharis trimera (Less.) DC. (carqueja) is a medicinal herb used in folk medicine and native to Brazil. Results from our research group have demonstrated the cytotoxic activity of aerial parts of B. trimera: ethyl acetate extract, its fraction obtained by solid phase extraction (EFSBt3), a subfraction obtained by EFSBt3 (148) composed largely by eupatorin (flavones) and essential oil. The cell lines tested were HepG2 (hepatocellular carcinoma), SiHa (cervical cancer), C33a (cervical cancer infected by VPH) and MRC-5 (fibroblast normal human cells). According to recent studies, eupatorin was able to reduce the number of viable human breast cancer cells but did not kill normal cells. For this study our proposal is to continue the phytochemical investigation with EFSBt3-4 fractions through chromatographic and spectrometric methods and to evaluate the essential oil compounds and subfractions or purified substances from EFSBt3-4 in citotoxic and types of death assays (necrosis/apoptosis) in HepG2, MCF-7 (breast cancer cell) and MCF-10 (breast normal cell) using sulforhodamine B, annexin V-FITC and Hoechst/propidium iodide assays in order to find secondary metabolites in carqueja that emerges as a promising anticancer agents. (AU)