Oliveira P F, Damasceno J L, Bertanha C S, Arajo A R B, Pauletti P M and Tavares D C
Posters: J Clin Toxicol
T he Styrax camporum is commonly found in Brazil and known mainly as "benjoeiro?. It is widely used for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders especially with its regard to antiulcerative potential. The benzofuran lignans, egonol and homoegonol are found in all species of the genus Styrax, being considered chemical markers of genus. Considering that natural products are some of the important sources of new anticancer drugs, this study evaluated the cytotoxic activity of S. camporum hydroalcoholic extract (SC) and their chemical markers, egonol (EG) and homoegonol (HE), against different tumor cell lines: Murine melanoma (B16F10), human breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7), human cervical adenocarcinoma (HeLa), human hepatocellular liver carcinoma (HepG2) and human glioblastoma (MO59J). A normal human cell line (lung fibroblasts; GM07492A) was included. The cytotoxic activity was evaluated at different times of treatments, 24 h, 48 h and 72 h, using the XTT assay and results were expressed in IC50. The results demonstrated that all natural products testedwere more cytotoxic for tumor cells at 72 h treatment. The more pronounced cytotoxic activity was observed for EG plus HE, with IC 50 values ranging from 13.3 to 62.2 μg/mL. The lowest IC 50 values were observed for the HeLa cells, these being 9.1 μg/mL for SC and 11.2 μg/mL for EG. Thus, SC, EG and HE demonstrated cytotoxic activity against tumor cell lines tested, and it was more effective against HeLa cell line
Oliveira P F obtained her Master's degree from University of Franca, So Paulo, Brazil, at age of 23. She is currently pursuing her PhD at the same institution. Her area of expertise is genetic toxicology, cancer chemoprevention and anti-tumoral activity models.
