Phytochemical properties of Iranian organic saffron stigma: antioxidant, anticancer and apoptotic approaches.

In this study, we compared chemical and antioxidant compounds of organic (OS) and inorganic (IOS) stigma of saffron and evaluated their anti-proliferative and apoptosis effects on cancer cells. Total antioxidant capacity of both saffron were characterized by FRAP, DPPH and Folin-Ciocalteu. HPLC and MTT methods were used to assay the amount of their secondary metabolites and anticancer effects, respectively. The expression of two apoptosis-related genes in treated cells evaluated by quantitative Real Time-PCR analysis. Our data indicated that OS has more secondary metabolites, antioxidant and cytotoxic properties compared to IOS. OS significantly inhibited cell viability in a dose- and time- dependent manner. Herb-induced apoptosis associated with increased expression of Bax and decreased Bcl2 gene leading eventually to a time-dependent increase in Bax/Bcl-2 ratio. Therefore, we can suggest organic saffron has promising and selective inhibitory effects on cancer cell proliferation. PMID: 28145859 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Cellular and Molecular Biology - Category: Molecular Biology Tags: Cell Mol Biol (Noisy-le-grand) Source Type: research