Hua Xu1,2 
,
Yong ping Wen1,
Wen Zhao1,
Qing He1
For correspondence:- Hua Xu Email: huaxmail@126.com Tel:+8602038375176
Received: 17 March 2010 Accepted: 30 August 2010 Published: 17 October 2010
Citation: Xu H, Wen Yp, Zhao W, He Q. In Vitro Antitumour Activity of Sesamum indicum Linn Flower Extracts. Trop J Pharm Res 2010; 9(5):455-462 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v9i5.5
© 2010 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..
Purpose: To investigate the antitumour activity of Sesamum indicum L.
Methods All the fractions of the ethanol extract of Sesamum indicum L. were obtained by solvent refining technique. Methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) method was used to test the cytotoxicity of the extracts on four different tumour cell lines - Hela, CNE-2, smmc-7721 and Kyse-410. The effect of Sesamum indicum L. on apoptosis and cell cycle of tumour cells was analyzed by flow cytometry.
Results The petroleum benzene fraction and diethyl ether fraction showed significant antitumour activity compared with the control (P<0.05). Typical hypodiploid apoptotic peak was demonstrated in tumour cells treated by petroleum benzene fraction. The diethyl ether fraction evidently influenced the cell cycle of the tumour cells.
Conclusion The petroleum benzene and diethyl ether fractions of Sesamum indicum L. may contain antitumour components. The mechanism of inhibition of tumour cells may be linked to cytotoxic activity and apoptotic induction.
Fulltext in PDF