A comparative study of the cytotoxic activities of three plants: Curcuma zedoaria, pinus maritima and curcuma xanthorrhiza on skin cancer A375 and HSC-5 cell lines

Background—Nowadays much attention has been focus on the use of natural plant-derived therapies. The three kinds of Thai plants, Curcuma zedoaria (CZ), Pinus maritima (PM) and Curcuma xanthorrrhiza (CX) have been reported to have many biological and physiological properties and potential to be used as a medicine in many clinical heaths but its anti-cancer effect is still less well understood. Objective—To evaluate and compare the signaling cytotoxicity pathways of three kinds of Thai plants-CZ, PM, and CX through intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) in different dose on the skin cancer cell line A375 and HSC-5. Methods—We evaluated the cytotoxic activities of three plants-CZ, PM, and CX on human melanoma A375 cell line and squamous cell carcinoma HSC-5 cell line after their supplementation by detection of intracellular ROS using CM-H2DCFDA as the fluorescent probe. Results—We found that only PM significantly induced oxidative stress responses in term of ROS generation on both A375 cells and HSC-5 cell therefore, it was the most potentially cytotoxic effect within dose dependent. Conclusion — Bark extract from Pinus maritima has potentially cytotoxic and oxidative damage against both skin cancer cells by inducing ROS-mediated autosis.