Cytotoxicity studies of vitex trifolia extracts / Afnan Sh. Ahmad

An in vitro cytotoxicity study is used as a standardized, rapid test to determine the toxic effect of the extracts on the cell lines. The purpose of this research was to find out the effects of Vitex trifolia methanol leaf and chloroform stem extract (1000, 100, 10, 1, 0.1 µM) on five cell lines which are CHO (Normal Chinese hamster ovary cell line), Vero (Normal Monkey Kidney), WRL68 (human hepatic cell line), HCTl 16 (human colon carcinoma) and HepG2 (human hepatocellular carcinoma) by using MTS cytotoxicity assay. The IC50 were established for the two extracts and the five cell lines. The IC5o for V trifolia methanol leaf extract were 35.64±4.10 µg/mL for CHO cell, 131.01±8.87 µg/mL for Vero cell, 90.87±10.12 µg/mL for WRL68 cell, 37.29±6.76 µg/mL for HCTl 16 cell and 40.52±9.27 µg/mL for HepG2 cell. While the IC50 values for V trifolia chloroform stem extracts were 51.13±5.90 µg/mL for CHO cell, 131.01±10.27 µg/mL for Vero cell, 51.01±11.67 µg/mL for WRL68 cell, 28.99±13.16 µg/mL for HCTl 16 cell and 64.83±15.27 µg/mL for HepG2 cell. From the results, for Vitex trifolia methanol leaf extract Vero cell line exhibited the highest ICso followed by WRL68, HepG2, HCTl 16 and CHO cells. For Vitex trifolia chloroform stem extract the Vero cell lines showed the highest IC50 followed by HepG2, CHO, WRL68, and HCTl 16. In conclusion, both extracts seemed to be cytotoxic to cancerous cells more than the normal cells. This may be a beginning in the search for new anticancer agents.