Abstract
The World Health Organization (WHO) has been on front line to encourage developing countries to identify medicinal plants that are safe and easily available to patients. Traditional medicine represents the first-treatment choice for the healthcare of approximately 80% of people living in developing countries. Also, its use in the United States has increased by 38% during within the last decade of the 20(th) century alone. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to explore the efficacy of a medicinal plant, Vernonia amygdalina Delile (VAD), as a new targeted therapy for the management of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), using HL-60 cells as a test model. To address our specific aim, HL-60 promyelocytic leukemia cells were treated with VAD. Live and dead cells were determined by acridine orange and propidium iodide (AO/PI) dye using the Cellometer Vision. The extent of DNA damage was evaluated by the comet assay. Cell apoptosis was evaluated by flow cytometry assessment. Data obtained from the AO/PI assay indicated that VAD significantly reduced the number of live cells in a dose-dependent manner, showing a gradual increase in the loss of viability in VAD-treated cells. We observed a significant increase in DNA damage in VAD-treated cells compared to the control group. Flow cytometry data demonstrated that VAD induced apoptosis in treated cells compared to the control cells. These results suggest that induction of cell death, DNA damage, and cell apoptosis are involved in the therapeutic efficacy of VAD. Because VAD exerts anticancer activity in vitro, it would be interesting to perform clinical trials to confirm its effectiveness as an anticancer agent towards the treatment of APL patients.