Anticancer Effect of Aqueous and Ethanol Extract of Pepperfruit (Dennettia tripetala) Fruit on MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cell Line using Neutral Red Uptake Assay

Abstract

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death in women. Natural products from plants and microorganism have provided the main source of folk medicine with a larger percentage of prescribed drugs containing compounds derived from plants, some being of great significance to cancer therapy. The significance of the study was to provide additional information on the potency of Dennettia tripetala against cancer. The study was aimed at evaluating the anticancer activity of aqueous and ethanol extract of Dennettia tripetala fruit against MCF-7 cell lines. About 150 g of the pulverized plant fruit was soaked in 1.5 litres of distilled water and alcohol to obtain aqueous and ethanol extracts. The extracts were concentrated to 3.125, 6.25, 12.5,25.0 and 50.0 µg/ml and used for experiment. Phytochemical analysis indicated presence of glycoside, saponins, steroids and triterpenes in the aqueous extract. All were present in the ethanol extract including tannins and excluding saponins. MCF-7 cell was cultured and then subcultured at confluence before treating with 5-fluorouracil drug as positive control, dimethyl sulfoxide as negative control and the various extracts of aqueous and ethanol extracts of Dennettia tripetala. The cytotoxicity assay was determined using neutral red uptake assay after 72 hours of treatment and the half inhibitory concentration was obtained from the linear regression equation after plotting a dose response curve of percentage cell inhibition. The result obtained from the cytotoxicity assay showed statistically significant increase (P<0.05) for percentage cell inhibition by the aqueous and ethanol extracts of Dennettia tripetala against the MCF-7 cell line at 25.0 and 50.0 µg/ml. The half inhibitory concentration was 37.42 and 61.74 µg/ml for aqueous and ethanol extract respectively. In conclusion, there is anticancer potency of Dennettia tripetala fruit against MCF-7 cancer cell line.