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Chemical Composition and in Vitro Cytotoxic Screening of Sixteen Commercial Essential Oils on Five Cancer Cell Lines
Author(s) -
Najar Basma,
Shortrede Jorge Eduardo,
Pistelli Luisa,
Buhagiar Joseph
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
chemistry and biodiversity
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.427
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1612-1880
pISSN - 1612-1872
DOI - 10.1002/cbdv.201900478
Subject(s) - traditional medicine , cinnamomum zeylanicum , chemistry , cymbopogon citratus , mtt assay , foeniculum , citral , syzygium , matrine , essential oil , botany , in vitro , biology , food science , biochemistry , medicine , chromatography
The in vitro cytotoxic activity on human cancer cell lines of sixteen commercial EOs such as Aloysia citriodora , Boswellia sacra , Boswellia serrata , Cinnamomum zeylanicum , Cistus ladanifer , Citrus × aurantium , Citrus limon , Citrus sinensis , Cymbopogon citratus , Foeniculum vulgare , Illicium verum , Litsea cubeba , Satureja montana , Syzygium aromaticum , Thymus capitatus and Thymus vulgaris was performed using the MTT reduction assay. The screening was carried out on human cancer cells of breast adenocarcinoma (MCF7, T47D and MDA‐MB‐231), chronic myelogenous erythroleukemia (K562) and neuroblastoma cell lines (SH‐SY5Y). C. zeylanicum and L. cubeba EOs were the most active on almost all the cell lines studied and thus could be promising as an anticancer agent. These two species showed a difference in their composition even though they belong to the Lauraceae family. Almost 57 % of the true cinnamon composition was made of ( E )‐cinnamaldehyde, while L. cubeba showed citral as the major compound (68.9 %). The K562 cells were the most sensitive to these oils with an IC 50 ranging from 5.2 parts‐per million (ppm) ( C. zeylanicum ) to 11.1 ppm ( L. cubeba ). The latter oil also showed an important cytotoxicity on MDA‐MB‐231 (13.4 ppm).