Antioxidant power and anticancer properties of Ephedra major Host. alcoholic extract and hydro-distilled essence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5433/1679-0367.2025v46n1p23Keywords:
Alcoholic extraction, Antioxidant power, Apoptosis, Cell viability, Ephedra major, Essential oilsAbstract
In this study, ethanolic and methanolic extracts of Ephedra major were extracted by maceration method and essence was prepared by hydro-distilled method. DPPH test was used to assess the antioxidant activity and total phenolic content determined by Folin-Ciocalteu. Also, ethanolic extract and essence were applied by MTT method for cytotoxicity against A549 cancer cells and HDF as normal cells. The percentage of apoptosis was measured by flow-cytometry. Real-time PCR was used to determine the changes of BAX and p53 genes expression. According to results, the antioxidant activity (IC50) of the ethanolic extract was lower while its total phenolic content was higher than methanolic one (p≤0.001). The lowest IC50 for cytotoxicity of ethanolic extract and essence determined as 700 μg.ml-1 and 280 μg.ml-1 at 48 hours respectively. The ethanolic extract and essence were not affected HDF proliferation significantly. The apoptosis assay showed that the use of ethanolic extract by IC50 concentration led to an increase in early and late apoptosis up to 22% and 29.3% respectively. Also, using the essence by that concentration increased early and late apoptosis up to 14.8% and 25.4%. Based on the results, the ethanolic extract and essence increased the expression of apoptosis-effective genes, p53 (p≤0.001) and BAX (p≤0.01) as compared with control. It can be concluded that higher amounts of phenolic compounds in ethanolic extract led to stronger antioxidant power of this extract in comparison with methanolic one. Therefore, the anti-cancer properties of the extract and essence of Ephedra major were raised from their antioxidant power.
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