ABSTRACT
Honey has been extensively researched on their chemical and biological properties. It’s revealed the ability and capability of honey in treating or preventing many diseases. As people concerned, a safer approach using natural based product is critically needed and honey as one of the potential agent to be consider. Therefore, the information on its biological activities has to be clarify to make society understand the benefit of honey especially Gelam honey.
ABSTRACT
Abstract@#Introduction: Goniothalamin (GTN) is a plant styryl-lactone that has been reported to possess anticancer properties. However, limited studies were conducted to explore the selectivity of GTN to human cancer cells in comparison with normal human cells counterpart. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cytotoxicity and selectivity of GTN in human cancer cells lines of osteosarcoma cells (Saos-2), adenocarcinoma alveolar basal epithelial cells (A549), breast carcinoma cells (UACC-732), breast adenocarcinoma cells (MCF-7), colorectal adenocarcinoma cells (HT29). Human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (HMSC) served as a control normal cell. Methods: The antiproliferative activity of GTN was assessed by MTT assay for 24, 48 and 72 h of incubation time. Then, the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) and the selectivity index (S.I) were calculated to examine the potency and selectivity of GTN. Results: GTN has significantly exhibited concentration and time-dependent inhibitory effect to all tested cancer cells with the lowest IC50 values ranging from 0.62±0.06 to 2.01±0.28 µg/ml after 72 h. Besides, GTN was found to be better than doxorubicin, DOX (positive control) in term of its selectivity towards cancer cells as higher S.I values between 2.86±0.31 to 10.02±1.49 were determined for all the cancer cells. Conclusion: This study concludes that GTN fulfills the basic criteria as an effective therapeutic agent by possessing a very strong range of anticancer activity with less toxicity towards the normal cells. Thus, GTN could be considered as a promising alternative to present chemotherapeutic drug in cancer treatment.
ABSTRACT
In this study, the immunomodulatory effects of zerumbone isolated from Zingiber zerumbet were investigated by evaluating the effects of this compound towards the lymphocytes proliferation [mice thymocytes, mice splenocytes and human human peripheral blood mononuclear cells, PBMC], cell cycle progression and cytokirie [interleukin 2 and 12] induction. Lymphocyte proliferation assay showed that zerumbone was able to activate mice thymocytes, splenocytes and PBMC at dosage dependent pattern where the best concentration was 7.5 micro g/mL. Flow cytometry analysis showed the highest population of PBMC entered into G2/M phase after treatment for 72 h with 7.5 micro g/mL zerumbone. The production of human interleukin-2 and human interleukin-12 cytokines in culture supernatant from zerumbone activated lymphocytes was prominently upregulated at 24 hour and decreased from 48 h to 72 h. The above results indicate that zerumbone can be used as immunomodulatory agent which can react toward the immune cell cytokine production in dosage dependent pattern