Phenolic content and cytotoxic effect of Vietnamese endemic tea Polyspora huongiana evaluated on selected cancer cells

Abstract

Tea is prevalent in Asian culture with multiple uses, including health care and medical applications. Polyspora huongiana is a Vietnamese endemic tea first described in the 2010s. Due to its local distribution, scientists are challenged in approaching this tea; the academic evidence of the anti-cancer properties of this Polyspora has been limited. By using cytotoxic evaluation assays, such as the MTT assay and Trypan blue exclusion test, the anti-cancer capacity of the P. huongiana leaf extract was reported on leukemic, breast cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma cells. The results showed a high amount of phenolic compounds (104.155 ± 11.32 mgGAE/g), including flavonoids (91.473 ± 17.52 mgQE/g), catechin (0.74 mg/g), and catechin derivatives (Epigallocatechin gallate with 1.06 mg/g and Epicatechin with 48.97 mg/g). P. huongiana expressed lethality in K562 (IC50 = 126.20 ± 15.92 µg/mL), MCF7 (IC50 = 184.48 ± 13.10 µg/mL), and HCC-J5 (IC50 = 151.03 ± 18.60 µg/mL). Besides, the extract also induced cell cycle dysregulation and transcriptomic modification in the treated cells. However, due to a suboptimal selectivity index, further research is required to enhance targeting efficiency.

Keywords

• Polyspora huongiana
• Phytochemicals
• Catechin
• Cytotoxic
• Gene expression

Ethical Statement

The authors declare that this study does not include experiments with human or animal subjects, so ethics committee approval is not required.

Thanks

We appreciate Dr. Vo Thanh Hoa, School of Medicine, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, for helping with the extraction process. We would like to thank MSc. Pham Hoai Linh for helping with the lab materials and equipment.

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