Abstract

INVITRO ANTICANCER ACTIVITY OF SPINACIA OLERACEA AGAINST VARIOUS MAMMALIAN CELL LINES

G. Umamaheswari* and Aiyasamy Nishanthini

Abstract

Anticancer activity is the effect of natural and synthetic or biological and chemical agents to reverse, suppress or prevent carcinogenic progression. In this study the anticancer potentials of plants was investigated against MCF-7 and HeLa cells in vitro. Cytotoxicity of various plant extracts was determined by MTT assay. The results showed that the methanolic extract of Indian spinaches Spinacia oleracea possessed a moderate amount of anticancer activity and the IC50 value was recorded. The most potent anticancer activity was observed with the methanolic bulb extract of Spinacia oleracea with IC50 values of 45.9μg/ml and 47.9μg/ml on MCF-7 and HeLa cells respectively. Phytochemical analyses revealed the presence of large amount of alkaloids and flavonoids in the potent plant extracts which may be suggested to play an important role in their anticancer activities.

Keywords: Anticancer, cytotoxicity, MCF-7, HeLa cells, MTT assay.