Chemical composition and in vitro cytotoxic screening of sixteen commercial essential oils on five cancer cell lines.

The in vitro cytotoxic activity on human cancer cell lines of sixteen commercial EOs such as Aloysia triphylla , Boswellia carterii , 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-MDB-231), chronic myelogenous erythroleukaemia (K562) and neuroblastoma cell lines (SH-SY5Y). C. zeylanicun and L. cubeba EOs were the most active on almost all the cell lines studied and thus could be promising as anticancer agent. These two species showed difference in their composition even though they belong to Lauraceae family. Almost 57% of the composition of the true cinnamon was made by (E)-cinnamaldehyde, while L. cubeba showed citral as major compound (68.9%). The K562 cells were the most sensitive to these oils with an IC 50 ranging from 5.2 ppm ( C. zeylanicum ) to 11.1 ppm ( L. cubeba ). The latter oil also showed an important cytotoxicity on MDA-MB-231 (13.4 ppm).