Abstract:
Breast cancer has become the leading cause of mortality due to cancers in women, worldwide.
Limitations and resistance to the current therapies has resulted in poor quality of life for patients
and decreased survival rates. Emerging studies propose the use of plants or plant based
bioactive compound to treat multifactorial diseases termed as nutraceutical therapy. Such
therapy has been shown to have an impact at molecular processes that are involved in cancer
progression. Apricot and its kernel are found to be a significant source of bioactive compounds
i.e., vitamins, antioxidants, anti-inflammatory compounds, phenols and flavonoids etc. which
play important role to prevent diseases including carcinoma and myocardial artery disease. The
aim of this study was to investigate the cytotoxic effect of Prunus armeniaca kernel oil on two
human breast cancer cell lines namely MCF-7 and MDA-MBA-231. The synergistic effect of
kernel oil with commercially available drugs tamoxifen and fulvestrant were also measured by
Chaou-talalay method. As Vitamin E is abundantly found in apricot kernel oil it has been
investigated for its anticancer, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory potentials through MTT,
DPPH and protein denaturation assay. Both compounds were also investigated for their effects
on DNA and RBCs through DNA stability and membrane stability assay. Evaluation shows
both DNA and RBCs stability are not affected by AKO and vitamin E. The bioactive
compounds of AKO and vitamin E have shown great antioxidant potential with IC50 at
9.306µl/ml and 10.43µl/ml, respectively. The IC50 in cytotoxicity assay has been evaluated at
24.73µl/ml and 27.15µl/ml for AKO and 41.59µM/ml for vitamin E on MCF-7 and MDA-MB 231 The IC50 for anti-inflammatory activity was measured at 9.65µl/ml for AKO and
10.78µl/ml for vitamin E. Findings from research shows that AKO contains potent bioactive
compounds to combat fatal illnesses.
