Report

In vitro Cytotoxicity and Cancer screening of an Herbal Tea

Client: Private, Mr Hoffman

Report compiled by: Dr Sekhoacha (MRC), Dr Dekock (UCT), Mrs Kolesnikova (CSIR)

1. OBJECTIVE

The objective was to test tea extracts for in vitro cytotoxicity on different cell lines.



2. BRIEF METHODOLOGY

The herbal tea mixture was extracted with methanol and hot water and under shaking for 48 hours. The methanol extract was dried by rota-evaporation while the water filtrate was freeze dried.




2.2     RESULTS SUMMARY

Cytotoxicity

No.	Sample	TGI, µg/ml	CHO: IC50 (µg/ml)	Status
1	Msek(water)	> 100	> 100	Not Hazard
2	Msek(methanol)	> 100	> 100	Not Hazard
	Emetine	0.13	0.121

Cancer Screening

No.	Sample	TGI, µg/ml TK-10	TGI, µg/ml UACC-62	TGI, µg/ml MCF-7	Status
1	Msek(water)	> 100	> 100	> 100	Inactive
2	Msek(methanol)	92.24	62.28	76.44	Inactive
	Etoposide	43.33	45.52	> 100



3. CONCLUSION

The extracts are considered inactive if parameter TGI for two cell lines is higher than 50 µg/ml. Therefore the samples Msek(water) and Msek(methanol) can be considered as inactive. The IC50 of the extracts was above 100µg/ml concentration. In conclusion, the water and methanol extracts of the tea were considered as not cytotoxic under the test conditions stated in the methodologies above.




Acknowledgements

Experimental work was conducted in collaboration with the Pharmacology Department, University of Cape Town, and CSIR biosciences pharmacology group, Pretoria.




References

Mosmann T, 1983. Rapid colorimetric assay for cellular growth and survival: Application to proliferation and cytotoxicity assays. Journal of Immunological Methods 65, 55-63.

Rubinstein LV, Shoemaker RH, Paull KD, Simon RM, Tosini S, Skehan P, Scudiero DA, Monks A, Boyd MR, 1990. Comparison of in vitro anticancer-drug-screening data generated with a tetrazolium assay against a diverse panel of human tumor cell lines. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 82, 1113-8.

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