The survey of Capparis extracts effects on expressional profile of essential self-renewal genes in MCF7 cell line

Abstract

Abstract Several drugs have been proposed for the treatment of breast cancer, but none has fully treated the disease, so far. this study was to investigate the effect of aqueous-alcoholic extract of unripe Capparis fruit as an anticancer agent on expressional pattern of OCT4, NANOG and SOX2 as essential self-renewal pathway genes in MCF7 cell line (human breast carcinoma). MCF7 cells were cultured in RPMI-1640 medium, consisting of different concentrations of aqueous-alcoholic extract of unripe Capparis fruit (125, 250, 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 and 5000 μg/ml) for 48 and 72 hours. MTT assay was used to determine the cell proliferation inhibition (IC50). RT-PCR method was carried out to assess the fold changes of OCT4, NANOG and SOX2 genes. One-way ANOVA was used for the statistical analysis of obtained data. Hydroalcoholic extract of the unripe Capparis fruit caused time- and concentration-dependent cell death in MCF7 cells. IC50 was observed at 48h culture period with 4817.51 μg/mL , and 72h with 2724.29 μg/ml fruit extract, respectively. Our results have shown that cell death was induced by increasing Capparis extract concentration. According to RT-PCR findings on capparis extract-treated cells, the mean expression of OCT4, NANOG and SOX2 genes decreased after 48 and 72h of incubation with IC50 concentration compared to controls.Capparis plant species is able to decrease the expression of self-renewal genes in MCF7 cell line. Therefore, the Capparis extract can be considered as a promising candidate for the management of human breast cancer after clinical trials.