Inhibition of human ovarian cancer cell lines by devil's club Oplopanax horridus.

OBJECTIVE

To search for more effective treatment of ovarian cancer, we investigated the in vitro anti-proliferation activities of Devil's club (OH) root bark extracts, an important medicinal plant of North America, on cisplatin sensitive and resistant human ovarian cancer cell lines.

METHODS

High performance liquid chromatography was used to provide the chemical profiling of the OH extracts. The anti-proliferation activities of OH extracts alone or in combination with cisplatin or paclitaxel were determined on four human ovarian cell lines by crystal violet assay. Flow cytometry and light microscopy were employed for cell cycle analysis, and also to detect apoptosis.

RESULTS

Our data showed that water, 70% ethanol, 100% ethanol, and ethyl acetate extracts of OH inhibited the proliferation of human ovarian cancer cell lines A2780, A2780CP70, OVCAR3, and OVCAR10 in vitro. The respective 50% inhibition (IC(50)) was estimated at 1/256, 1/74, 1/69, 1/53; 1/4156, 1/1847, 1/1029, 1/4530; 1/25,753, 1/3310, 1/3462, 1/5049; and 1/29,916, 1/2912 1/3828, and 1/4232 dilutions. Some combinations of non-cytotoxic dilutions (

CONCLUSIONS

Our data showed that OH extracts exhibited significant anti-proliferation effect against both cisplatin sensitive and resistant human ovarian cell lines. Further research might result in discovery of agent(s) that can potentially be useful as an adjunct therapy for ovarian cancer cells. It is one of the few North American medicinal herbs that have been tested for anti-ovarian cancer activities.