Correlation between Antioxidant/Antimutagenic and Antiproliferative Activity of Some Phytochemicals; A Prediction Model

Abstract

Chemotherapeutic drugs have high toxicity associated with undesirable side-effects. Now, natural products are the most important anti-cancer agents because of their low toxicity and potential effectiveness. The aims of the present study were finding a relation between the antioxidant properties of three phytochemicals and their antiproliferative activity against human cancer cell lines, analyzing the apoptotic pathways through which these phytochemicals act, understanding the antimutagenic activity of these phytochemicals and its link to their antiproliferative effect. We investigated three natural compounds; amygdalin, naringenin and ellagic acid. Ellagic acid showed the highest antioxidant and antiproliferative activities. Amygdalin and naringenin with low and moderate antioxidant profiles showed a corresponding low and moderate cytotoxicity against cancer cell lines, respectively. Naringenin and ellagic acid had a significant antimutagenic activity which was detected by the Salmonella test. Ellagic acid offered much better antimutagenic activity than naringenin. The apoptotic pathway evoked by ellagic acid in HepG2 and MCF-7 cells was investigated. The results showed that a caspase-dependent and a caspase-independent apoptosis occurred in MCF-7 and HepG2, respectively. These phytochemicals showed an antioxidant, anticancer and antimutagenic activities that make them good therapeutic agents. This study proved that some easy, quick and cheap assays could predict the antiproliferative activity of many nutraceuticals. Finally, this platform could help in the discovery of new anticancer agents where hundreds or even thousands of compounds are investigated in the pipeline of drug discovery.