In vitro cytobiological effects of phytochemicals from Artemisia turanica

Phytochemicals from the plants have been used as traditional medicine and can cause many biological effects such as antimicrobial, anticancer, mutagenic and etc.

The subject of this research was to determine the chemical constituents and evaluate the antimicrobial, anticancer, cytotoxicity, mutagenic and anti mutagenic activities of the volatile oil of Artemisia turanica Krasch.

Antimicrobial properties were measured by agar disc diffusion method. Cytotoxicity was determined through 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide method on human lymphocytes and cancer HeLa cells. Toxicity, mutagenesis, and anti-mutagenesis effects of the essential oil were measured by the Ames Salmonella mutagenicity method, in the existence or absence of S9 as a metabolic activation.

Oxygenated monoterpenes, especially 1,8-cineole (35.2 %), α-thujone (24.2 %) and cis-chrysanthenol (16.8 %) were the main components in this volatile oil. Bactericidal kinetics of the volatile oil of A. turanica indicated that Esherichia coli is the most vulnerable one (minimal inhibitory concentration = 2.5 mg/ml, D value = 6.43 min). Cytotoxicity of the A. turanica oil in the human tumor cell line (17.67 μg/ml) was more than that observed in normal human lymphocytes (3291.49 μg/ml). Volatile oil of A. turanica showed suitable antimutagenic potency on 2-nitrofluorene, in the strain of Salmonella typhimurium TA98, without the existence of metabolic activation S9.

The results achieved by human cells and with S. typhimurium prove that the volatile oil of A. turanica may be exploited as a natural anticancer and antimutagenic agent with low adverse side effects.