THE CYTOTOXIC EFFECT OF BENZOIC ACID ON TEN DIFFERENT CANCER CELL LINES

Abstract

Cancer, having numerous types, is among the most dangerous and complex chronic diseases in the world affecting the wellbeing of humans, society and economy. The exploration and reassessment of effective chemicals, compounds, and natural products as potential agents for alleviating the adverse effects of cancer and its related symptoms continue on a global scale. This process involves an initial evaluation of the cytotoxic activities of potential drug candidates or treatment regimens on diverse cancer cell types in an ex vivo context. Benzoic acid (BA), an aromatic carboxylic acid that is widely available and used in the food industry, is one of the phenolic acids that may bear considerable anti-cancer potential. It is useful to find out the comparable effect of BA on various cancer types. Therefore, in this study, we tested the cytotoxicity of BA using MTT assay, on a number of ten different cancer cell lines and one normal cell type, namely prostate cancer (PC3), cervical cancer (HeLA), liver cancer (HUH7), colon cancer (CaCO2, HT29, SW48), bone cancer (MG63 and A673), pharyngeal cancer (2A3), lung cancer (CRM612) and kidney epithelial control cell line (Phoenix), respectively. IC50 (µg/ml) values after 48 and 72-hour exposure to BA were found to differ between 85.54±3.17 to 670.6±43.26, while the IC values for the control cell line Phoenix were 410.54±32.29 and 231.16±25.25, respectively. Taking into account of statistical evaluation of the IC50 values for BA on 11 cell types, we suggest that the molecular and omics approaches can be implemented in more details in order to find cellular and biochemical targets of BA as well as elucidating molecular mode of action, especially starting with the cancer cell lines of MG63, CRM612 and A673, in which the IC50 levels are relatively the lowest compared to those of the control cell line.