Imaobong C Etti1 
,
Imo Udoh2
For correspondence:- Imaobong Etti Email: ettiimaobong@gmail.com Tel:+234-9079986921
Received: 1 June 2025 Accepted: 15 August 2025 Published: 30 September 2025
Citation: Etti IC, Udoh I. In vitro apoptosis-inducing effect of pinostrobin on MCF-7 breast cancer cells. Trop J Pharm Res 2025; 24(9):1127-1133 doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/tjpr.v24i9.5
© 2025 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 ability of pinostrobin to instigate apoptosis in human adenocarcinoma cell line (MCF-7). Methods: To visualize the distinct features of apoptosis, cells were subjected to parallel staining with AO/PI dual fluorescent staining, while Annexin V-FITC flow cytometry facilitated the evaluation of the extent of death triggered by pinostrobin. Results: Unique morphological changes, such as nuclear condensation and fragmentation, cell shrinkage, membrane loss, and blebbing, characteristic of apoptosis, were evident following treatment with pinostrobin at concentrations of 0, 3, 10, and 30 μM. The percentage of cell survival drastically reduced from 97.78, 93.38, and 3.87 % to 0.83 % after exposure to 3, 10, and 30 μM concentrations of pinostrobin, respectively. As the viability drastically reduced, a greater percentage of cancer cells shifted to the late apoptotic stage in a concentration-dependent manner. Conclusion: This study demonstrates the potential of pinostrobin to kill breast cancer cells by forcing them to surrender their growth potential. Further analysis is recommended to ascertain this apoptotic mechanism.
Fulltext in PDF