Cytotoxic effect of the extract of seaweed Sargassum glaucescens against breast (MCF-7) and colorectal (HT-29) cancer cell lines

Background: Seaweed is one of the natural resources with a wide range of secondary metabolites, which has cytotoxic properties. The present study aimed to investigate the cytotoxic effect of seaweed Sargassum glaucescens collected from Chabahar seashores against colorectal and breast cancer cells. Materials and Methods: The cytotoxicity of methanol, chloroform, ethyl-acetate and hexane extracts of the seaweed at different concentrations (125, 250, 500 and 1000 μg/ml) against cancer cells of MCF-7 and HT-29 was evaluated by MTT and trypan blue methods. The DNA fragmentation of cells was also investigated by the electrophoresis method. Results: The percentage of live cells was decreased by increasing the concentration of the extracts. The concentration of 1000 μg/ml of methanol extract showed the highest effect compared to the control and also lower concentrations of the extract (P<0.05). The LC50 of the methanol extracts of colorectal and breast cancer cells were 630.8±16.37 and 774.01±28.07 µg/ml, respectively. Also, the algal methanol extract was able to fragment the DNA of cancer cells and to induce apoptosis compared with the control samples. Conclusion: The cytotoxic effect of the seaweed extract can be the beginning of further studies to achieve cancer treatment. Also, after pre-clinical and clinical studies, these extracts can be used in the food and pharmaceutical industries