• In vitro evaluation of anticancer, cytotoxic and apoptotic activities of chicory extracts on the MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines
  • Nasrin Jafari,1 Saadi hiosseini ,2 Elmira Shiuokhi,3 Mahmood Talkhabi,4 Atefeh Alipour,5 Hosein Shahsavarani,6,*
    1. Faculty of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran &Laboratory of Regenerative Medicine and Biomedical Innovations, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
    2. Faculty of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran &Laboratory of Regenerative Medicine and Biomedical Innovations, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
    3. Laboratory of Regenerative Medicine and Biomedical Innovations, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
    5. Department of Nanotechnology, Pasteur institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
    6. Faculty of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran &Laboratory of Regenerative Medicine and Biomedical Innovations, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran


  • Introduction: Nowadays, cancer is the one important cause of death worldwide. up to now, an ideal medicine has not been yet found for most cancer treatment. Natural products and derivatives of medicinal plants can play an important role to cure cancer. In this study, we investigated the anti-cancer and apoptotic effects of ethanolic extracts of chicory extract on the MCF-7 line breast cancer cells.
  • Methods: In this study, the ethanolic extract of chicory extract leaf and flowers were prepared by the solvent extraction set and the cytotoxic effect on MCF-7 cell lines was investigated. MCF-7 cell lines were seeded and treated with various concentrations of extract (25-500 μm/ml) for 24,72 and 120 hours, thin growth inhibition and apoptosis were evaluated using MTT assay and DAPI staining The expression genes including BRCA2 and HER2 was evaluated by qRT-PCR, Data were analyzed using SPSS16.
  • Results: The results showed that the effect of the extract significantly reduced the cell viability percent in treated groups MCF-7 cell line compared to the control group in (150-200 μm/ml) concentrations on the120 hours and IC50 values were (180 μm/ml) for MCF-7 cell line. Also, the DAPI stain nucleus with this concentration of extract showed apoptosis-inducing on an MCF-7 cell line. Moreover, molecular findings showed that 150-200 μm/ml concentrations of the extract could upregulate BRCA2 genes expression and downregulate HER2 gene expression (p<0.05).
  • Conclusion: The present study showed that the chicory extract can Inhibit cell growth as well as induce apoptosis in MCF-7 line breast cancer cells in a dose and time-dependent manner, the results suggested using chicory extract in cancer treatment, AlsoTo finds the underlying mechanism of this activity, more research needs to be done.
  • Keywords: anti-cancer, apoptosis, chicory extract, BRCA2, breast cancer