ABSTRACT
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Present treatment options include chemotherapy, radiationtherapy, and surgery, all of which have side effects. In order to mitigate the side effects of these treatments, there isa need to look for combinational or alternative treatment, which is based on natural sources. Present study aims toscreen the whole plant extracts of Sesuvium portulcastrum for its antiproliferative activity against various cancer celllines. Different extracts of S. portulacastrum were prepared using ethanol, methanol, acetone, hexane, and diethylether as solvent. Their anticancer activity was evaluated against human breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231), humanneuroblastoma cell line (IMR-32), and human colon cancer cells (HCT-116) using the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Propidium iodide staining method was used to observe the apoptosisassociated morphological changes under the microscope. Among the five extracts, diethyl ether extract showed thehighest activity with IC50 values of 288.69 ± 6.53 μg/ml for MDA-MB-231, 231.01 ± 6.31 μg/ml for IMR-32, and182.86 ± 4.29 μg/ml for HCT-116 cell lines. Our results suggest that the extracts of S. portulacastrum exhibit goodanticancer activity against the different cell lines tested.