Phytochemicals and their anti-proliferative activity of Aloe perryi flowers extract against various human cancer cell lines

In this study, phytochemical screening of petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol and methanolic extracts of Aloe perryi flowers and their antiproliferative activity against seven human cancerous cell lines (namely liver (HepG2), colon (HCT-16), breast (MCF-7), lung adenocarcinoma (A549), prostate cancer (PC-3), human epidermoid cancer cells (HEp-2, and cervical cancer (HeLa)) were studied. The phytochemical screening was performed by Thin Layer chromatography (TLC) and antiproliferative activities by MTT assay. The quantitative tests of phytochemical screening revealed the presence of carbohydrates, glycosides, phytosterols, flavonoids, proteins and amino acids in the different extracts. The results also demonstrated that almost all of the extracts more or less had the capacity to decrease the proliferation of cancer cells. The HCT-16 cells were found more sensitive against all the extracts studied. Among the extracts, the highest activity for petroleum ether extract was found against HCT-16 cell line (IC₅₀= 5.61 ug/ml) followed by HeLa (IC₅₀= 5.83), A-549 (IC₅₀= 7.54), MCF-7 (IC₅₀= 7.88), HepG2 (IC₅₀= 8.2), PC-3 (IC₅₀= 9.51), HEp-2 (IC₅₀= 10.1). The results indicated that the extracts used in this study having phytochemicals and anticancer activity against all the cell lines. However, further studies are needed for evaluating their mechanism of action and to isolate the active anticancer compounds responsible for this activity.