In Silico and In Vitro Evaluation of Cytotoxic Activities of Farnesiferol C and Microlobin on MCF-7, Hela and KYSE Cell Lines

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Despite certain advances in cancer therapy, still there is considerable demand for developing efficient therapeutic agents. Nowadays, there is a rising interest in the use of natural-based anti-cancer drugs. In this study, the cytotoxicity of farnesiferol C and microlobin isolated from Ferula szowitsiana was investigated against MCF-7, HeLa and KYSE cancer cell lines. In addition, the mechanism of binding of these compounds to apoptotic proteins (Bax, Bak and Bcl-2) was analyzed by an in silico method. We used MTT assay in order to assess the cytotoxicity of compounds against cancer cell lines. For in silico study, the AutoDock 4 was adopted. According to the in vitro findings, in general, farnesiferol C showed significant cytotoxicity at higher concentrations ( 50 µM) following 48 and 72 h incubation with the selected cancer cells; however, microlobin exhibited almost no activity at concentrations up to 100 µM. The in silico results revealed that both compounds could bind to Bax more efficiently rather than to Bcl-2 or Bak proteins. The results obtained by our preliminary in vitro and in silico studies suggest that these compounds might induce apoptosis through Bax activation; however further studies, either in vitro or in vivo are needed to clarify these activities.