The Effect of Carthamus tenuis Extracts on the Cell Proliferation of Different Tumor Cell Lines

Background: Carthamus tenuis is one of the medicinal plants that was used traditionally to treat skin diseases, hemorrhoids, abortion, infertility. It also showed an immunosuppressive role as well as antifungal, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory activity. Although this plant is widespread, there are few studies about its medical applications. Objectives: This study was done to explore the anticancer activity of this plant. Materials and Methods: The aerial parts of the plant were dried, grinded and extracted with hexane, ethyl acetate, and methanol. The extracts were applied in different concentrations to cell cultures of breast (MCF-7), colon (HT-29), prostate (PC-3) and colorectal (CaCo-2) cell lines and fibroblast (MRC- 5) was used as a control. The anticancer activity was evaluated by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2- yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium (MTT) reduction assay that was measured by spectrophotometer. Results: The results showed that methanol extract significantly (p<0.05) have the highest inhibitory activity on MCF-7, HT-29, PC-3, and CaCo-2 with IC₅₀; (25.52 μg/ml), (17.37 μg/ml), (25.77 μg/ml), (24.49 μg/ml), respectively. Followed by ethyl acetate extract that moderately inhibit cell growth of PC-3 and CaCo-2 with IC₅₀; (28.99 μg/ml) and (21.45 μg/ml), respectively. n-hexane extract showed no significant inhibitory effect on all cell lines; IC₅₀ (125.52 -152.34 μg/ml) when compared to Tamoxifen drug activity as a positive control. Conclusion: Results of this study showed the anticancer activity of the plant extracts in four different kinds of cancers that need further study.