Abstract
Since the stone age, medicinal plants have played a major role in mediating human health and overcoming different lethal diseases. Dysphania ambrosioides is a popular medicinal plant in semitropical countries. Few studies have been reported on the anti-carcinogenic activity of D. ambrosioides. In this study, the essential oil extracted from its leaves was used to investigate its biological effect on cancer progression and related processes indifferent human cancer cell lines. We identified ten constituents of D. ambrosioides oil where the major compound was a scaridole and three minor compounds included P-Cymene, Isoascaridole and Terpinene.
Other compounds included 2, 3-Pinanediol, Benzaldehyde and 1-Vinyl-Cyclohexanol. The essential oil exhibited the highest cytotoxic effect against human cell lines at IC50 values ranging from 15.2 to 30.3 mu g/ml. The maximum concentration of 500 mu g/ml was observed to have the highest inhibition effect ranging from 95.11 to 98.62 % respectively using5-Flurourasil as reference. This study concluded that the essential oil of Saudi Arabian D. ambrosioides leaves can play a substantial role against human cancer cells and can also yield other useful products and molecules for pharmaceutical and industrial applications.