Effects of Rubus idaeus extracts on some Cancerous Cell Lines in vitro Study Using MTT Assay

Our study investigated the cytotoxicity of Rubus idaeus alcoholic and aqueous extracts prepared from ripe blackberries were collected from the farmlands north of Baghdad, the extracts prepared at the same starting concentration, and tested on two cell line, the result show high toxic effects increase with the increase of concentration. The three extracted components from Rubus idaeus (purified flavonoid, polysaccharides, and carotenes) showed cytotoxic effect towards both: the primary cell culture of normal hepatic cells (HepG2 and L20B cell), and cancer hepatic cell lines (HepG2 and L20B cell) at 100μg/ml concentration for 24 hours treatment. Purified flavonoid exerted the potent effect on both cell lines among the other two extracted components. The cytotoxicity assay was held only for the purified flavonoid to investigate the mechanism by which the purified flavonoid affected living cells toward apoptosis. The most significant reduction (p≤0.05) in cell viable count was at the concentration 100μg/ml which appear to cause the induction of cell death via mitochondrial pathway for HepG2 and L20B cell line after 24 hours exposure. The purified flavonoid had no effect on the HepG-2 cell cycle. The Immunomodulation effect for the purified flavonoid and the extracted polysaccharides on normal human peripheral blood lymphocytes showed that the purified flavonoid suppress lymphocytes proliferation, while the later increased lymphocytes proliferation significantly. The immune stimulating effect of the polysaccharides caused alteration in IL-17 and level estimated by ELISA technique towards IL-2 elevation for the normal human blood lymphocytes against IL-17 level after 4 hours exposure at concentrations (250 and 500 μg/ml), while toxicity results were shown after 4 hours.