Extraction, profiling and bioactivity analysis of volatile glucosinolates present in oil extract of Brassica juncea var. raya.

Cruciferous vegetables are rich source of glucosinolates (GSLs), which in presence of myrosinase enzyme cause hydrolytic cleavage and result in different hydrolytic products like isothiocyanates, thiocyanates, nitriles and epinitriles. The GSLs hydrolytic products are volatile compounds, which are known to exhibit bioactivities like antioxidant, fungicidal, bioherbicidal and anticancer. Among the Brassicaceae family, Brassica juncea is very well known for high content of GSLs. In the present study, the isolation of volatile oil of B. juncea var. raya was done by hydrodistillation method using clevenger apparatus and further there extraction was done by solvents ethyl acetate and dichloromethane. The volatile compounds present in the extract were analysed by gas chromatography/gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/GC-MS). Fatty acid esters, sulphur and/or nitrogen compounds, carbonyl compounds and some other volatile compounds were also identified. Besides the analytical studies, the extracts were analysed for their bioactivities including radical scavenging activity by using DNA nicking assay and cytotoxic effect using different human cancer cell lines viz. breast (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231), prostate (PC-3), lung (A-549), cervix (HeLa) and colon (HCT116) by MTT assay. The oil extracts were efficiently able to reduce the increase of cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner. Among all cell lines, the most effective anticancer activity was observed in case of breast (MCF-7) cancer cell line. So, MCF-7 cells were used for further mechanistic studies for analysing the mechanism of anticancer activity. Confocal microscopy was done for analysing morphological changes in the cells and the images confirmed the features typical of apoptosis. For evaluating the mode of cell death, spectrofluorometric determination of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) was done. The volatile oil extract treated MCF-7 cells had a significant increase in number of ROS, also there was a rise in percentage of cells with increased disruption of MMP. So, the present study marks necessary indication that B. juncea (raya) oil extracts significantly induces apoptosis in all the above mentioned cancer cells lines through a ROS-mediated mitochondrial pathway and thus play a remarkable role in death of cancer cells.