Can crude alkaloids extract of Rhazya stricta induce apoptosis in pancreatic cancer: In vitro study?

Cancer is a complicateddisease that reveals genetic variability even among the cells within the same tumor. Pancreatic cancer is the 12th cause of cancer deaths over the world. As a result of the incomplete recovery and the many side effects of current clinical treatment approaches, Herbal diet therapy as a single or adjuvant therapy show high significant output in cancer treatment. Our study focused on the role of the crude alkaloid extract of Rhazya stricter (R. stricta) on pancreatic cancer cells using MTT assay. The cytotoxic effect of different concentrations of R. Strict crude alkaloid on the pancreatic cancer cells showed significant decrease in cell viability with dose dependent manner and the effect was observed at higher concentration of crude R. Stricta alkaloids. On the other hand, no significant cytotoxic effect was observed with the normal WISH cells at all R. Stricta crude alkaloid concentrations with IC50. Moving on, in AsPC-1cells under the same concentrations mRNA expression was increased by 1.5 and 6 folds with 10 and 100 μg/ Ml treatment when compared with control. Under the same experimental conditions, the anti- apoptotic marker Bcl-2 showed high significant decrease in mRNA expression in both PANC-1 and AsPC-1 pancreatic cancer cells. The present study indicated that the crude alkaloids extract of R. stricta significantly induce apoptotic cell death in pancreatic cancer cells.