Cleome gynandra leaves anticancer activity study from methanol extract / Muhammad 'Afif Othman

Liver cancer has been identified as the sixth most often diagnosed cancer cases and third most common killer cancer in many countries of the world. Despite progressiveness in cancer treatment over the years, there is still no absolute cure to the disease and the present cancer therapy, such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy, give undesirable side effects to cancer patients. Therefore, it is quite important to find anticancer drugs that are potent and gives fewer side effects. Nowadays, plants have been the main focused research topic on the anticancer properties. Cleome gynandra is a plant that can be found on most countries in eastern and southern Africa as well as India. The plant traditionally has been used in the treatment of malaria, gonorrhoea and rheumatoid arthritis. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the plant, Cleome gynandra leaves extracts, affects the viability ofliver cancer cells. Using MTT assays, it showed that the extracts have the ability to reduce the viability of HepG2 cancer cells in a dose-dependence manner with IC50 = 223.84±15.88 µglml.Cleome gynandra extract demonstrates weak cytotoxic effecton HepG2 cancer cells. Further study should be conducted on other type of cancer cells. Since the extract did not show toxic effect on normal cells, more study should be done on medicinal value of this plant.