Presented at: 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, New Orleans, LA, April 16-20, 2016.

Published in: Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2017; April 1-5, 2017; Washington, DC

Abstract
Breast cancer remains a leading cause of women’s death worldwide with progressive emergence of resistance towards approved chemotherapies. For this reason, new complementarytreatments have been sought. One of those includethe use of a phytobiological mixture against different types of malignancies, including but not limited to breast cancer. Herein, we investigated the anti-proliferative effects of a novel phytobiological mixture (PB)against two breast cancer cell lines :MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7.The PB mixture is composed of the following: quercetin, resveratrol, cruciferex, epigallocatechin-3-gallate and curcumin at different proportions. Theanti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic effects of PB were evaluated at non-cytotoxic concentrations as determined usingthe Sulfa-Rhodamine B assay (SRB).The effects of PB on the induction of apoptosis were valuated using Annexin-V and flow cytometry to measure the resultingDNA fragments. The results showed that at 72hrs, PB had cytotoxic effects against MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cells with an IC₅₀’s of 25.8±5.4 µg/ml and 56.9±4.2 µg/ml, respectively. Exposure of MDA-MB-231 to PB for 72hrs resulted in the induction of apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner. PB concentrations of 10 µg/ml and 30 µg/ml, resulted in early programmed cell death of 9.1±1.5% and 22.1±1.8% respectively. Exposure to PB (10 µg/ml for 24 hrs) resulted in mild cell cycle arrest at the G₂/M phase20.3±0.3% ;while higher dosesshowed a significant cell cyclearrest at theS-phaseas compared to the control untreated cells (p<0.001). However, exposure to PB for 48 hrs at both doses,10 µg/ml and30 µg/ml,resulted in a significant cell cycle arrest at the S-phase 25.3±1.6% and 20.5± 0.4%respectivelyas compared to the control untreated cells 12.4±1.5% (p<0.001). In conclusion, PB was found to have a promising anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic effect in breast cancer cell lines. Further studies are needed to address the underlying mechanism of action of PB against breast cancer cell lines.

Citation Format:
Afnan A. Alqarni, Aliaa A. Alamoudi, Ghada M. Ajabnoor, Ahmed M. Al-Abd, Aleksandra Niedwiecki, Matthias Rath, Steve Harakeh. Inhibition of proliferation and induction of apoptosis by a novel phytobiological mixture against breast cancer cell lines [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 4208. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-4208

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