Coffea arabica bean extracts and vitamin C: A novel combination unleashes MCF-7 cell death. - GreenMedInfo Summary
Coffea arabica bean extracts and vitamin C: A novel combination unleashes MCF-7 cell death.
Curr Pharm Biotechnol. 2019 08 22. Epub 2019 Aug 22. PMID: 31438827
Islam El-Garawani
BACKGROUND: Vitamin C (VC) is believed to enhance immunity and is regularly integrated as a supplementary agent during several treatments.
OBJECTIVE: The green (GC) and roasted (RC) Coffee (Coffea arabica) aqueous extracts (0, 125, 250 and 500μg/ml) combined with VC (50 μg/ml) were examined on the cancerous MCF-7 cell line and normal human lymphocytes.
METHODS: Neutral red uptake assay, comet assay, immunocytochemical reactivity for protein expression and mRNA expression of apoptosis-related genes were done.
RESULTS: A significant (P<0.05) concentration-dependent increase of apoptotic features, such as morphological changes, abundant nuclear condensation, altered expression of p53 and caspase-3 mRNA, down-regulation of Bcl-2 protein as well as the acidic autophagosomal vacuolization in treated cells. The oxidative stress and DNA single strand breaks were noticed too.
CONCLUSION: These results suggest that coffee in combination with VC undergo apoptotic anticancer pathway. This supports the integration of coffee and vitamin C as a valuable candidate for anticancer research and treatments.
