ANTICANCER ACTIVITY OF NATURAL COMPOUND FROM LEMON GRASS LEAVES EXTRACT ON LUNG CARCINOMA CELL LINE A549: AN IN VITRO STUDY

Lemon grass is a widely cultivated plant, whose extracts are known to possess anti-cancer properties. However, studies related to the effect of different solvent extracts of lemon grass on lung cancer cell lines are scarce. This study was conducted to study the effect of various extracts on the viability of the A549 lung carcinoma cell line. Four solvents (hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and ethanol) were used for extraction of lemon grass. The effect of these solvent extracts on A549 cell line was studied. Cell viability was studied by 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-Yl)-2,5-Diphenyltetrazolium Bromide (MTT) method. The effect of apoptosis on exposure to aforementioned extracts was observed with help of nuclear staining assays and western blotting techniques. Apoptosis was confirmed by nuclear staining using acridine orange ethidium bromide (Ao/EtBr), while pro- and anti-apoptotic cells expressions analysis was conducted using western blotting. All extracts showed cytotoxicity on lung carcinoma cell line, wherein, ethyl acetate and hexane extracts showed up to 48.6±3.8% and 51.7±1.7% viability at 250µg/mL concentration. Up regulation of pro-apoptotic gene expressions like Caspase-3 and inhibition of anti-apoptotic gene expression like Bcl-2 was observed after 24h. An inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 220.01 µg/mL was obtained for the ethyl acetate extract. When observed under fluorescence microscope, stained cells showed an orange red color in the nuclei, indicating the ethyl acetate extract had induced apoptosis potentially for 24 h exposure cells expression, when compared with control cells. The results show that the ethyl acetate extracts were efficient in inhibiting the A549 cell line under in vitro condition, suggesting this extract can be further used as a potential chemotherapy drug.