Abstract

Over time, cancer remains a world public health problem. The use of traditional medicine as alternative treatments of cancer was recognized in 1950s by the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) under the leadership of the late Dr. Jonathan Hartwell. In this context, we are interested to search for bioactive natural substances for cancer therapy used in Moroccan traditional medicine. Based on ethnopharmacological study, we selected four plants with an important therapy against cancer in Moroccan traditional medicine; these are Aristolochia longa (L), Citrullus colocynthis (L), Piper cubeba (L) and Delphinium Staphisagria (L). In the pharmacological study, we evaluated the antiproliferative activity of selected Moroccan plants on five different cancer cell lines namely MCF7, HT29, N2A, H5-6 and VCREMS using 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay at a dose of 500 µg/ml; lyophilized extracts after 24 h of treatment showed that two plants possess significant cytotoxic activity against cancer cell lines, such as MCF7, HT29, N2A, H5-6 and VCREMS. P. cubeba (L) extract showed the inhibition of 98.64 and 91.59% against MCF7 lines and HT29 cell lines, and for C. colocynthis (L), 91.84 and 85.58%, respectively. C. colocynthis (L) showed a dose-dependent effect on MCF7 and HT29 cell lines with an IC₅₀of 22.0 and 32.5 µg/ml, respectively. This cytotoxicity is induced probably by apoptosis.

Key words: Aristolochia longa (L), Citrullus colocynthis (L), Piper cubeba (L), Delphinium Staphisagria (L), cytotoxicity, 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT), cancer cell lines, IC₅₀.