Anastatica hierochuntica Extracts: Promising, Safe and Selective Anticancer Agents

Background: Medicinal plants have been used for many centuries for their significant phytochemical reservoir, forming a foundation for many medicinal drugs. Conventional cancer therapy possesses a number of undesired problems, including poor selectivity, severe side effects and resistance to cancer. Objective: There is a need for new anticancer drugs, possibly from natural sources such as medicinal plants. A. Hierochuntica L. is rich with phytochemicals and is widely used in traditional medicine. Methods: The antiproliferative activities of A. hierochuntica whole plant extracts (ethanol, methanol, ethyl acetate, chloroform and water) were determined against a panel of cancer cells and normal primary dermal fibroblasts. The genotoxic effect of A. hierochuntica ethyl acetate on mice bone marrow cells was also evaluated. Genotoxic parameters included chromosomal aberration, mitodepression, micronuclei formation and sister chromatid exchange. Results: A. hierochuntica exhibited antiproliferative activity against leukemia (K-562) and melanoma (A-375) cells. This is the first study to demonstrate the effect of A. hierochuntica ethyl acetate extract on cancer cell lines, found to be the most cytotoxic of all extracts. Furthermore, the chloroform extract showed notable anti-proliferative effects against most cancer cell lines tested. The extracts proved to be highly safe on human normal skin fibroblasts. Furthermore, A. hierochuntica ethyl acetate extract was also found to have limited genotoxic effects, with these changes seen at very high doses only. Conclusion: The results indicate that A. hierochuntica extracts have significant selective anticancer activity and that genotoxicity is only observed at very high concentrations.