Anticancer efficacy of ethyl acetate extract of Senna uniflora and its potential selective cytotoxicity on triple-negative breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231)

Abstract

Cell-based cytotoxicity assays have been utilized as the most common screening method for discovering cytotoxic anticancer drugs from natural products. The current research work aimed to investigate the anticancer efficacy of ethyl acetate extract of Senna uniflora (SUEA) against lung, liver and breast cancer cell lines, A549, HepG2, MDAMB-231 and MCF-7, with one non-tumorigenic cell line, MCF-10A. Cytotoxicity was assessed using the MTT assay on these cell lines at concentrations ranging from 12.5-200 μg/mL. SUEA exhibited dose-dependent minimal toxicity toward MCF-10A cells (>80% viability) and HepG2 cells (>87% viability), moderate toxicity in A549 cells (~70% viability) and MCF-7 cells (~68% viability) at 200 μg/mL, and potent selective cytotoxicity in the triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cell line model, MDA-MB-231 (~24% viability at 200 μg/mL), with an IC₅₀ value of 56.63 μg/mL. Phytochemical profiling using GC–MS revealed six major natural constituents, particularly griseoxanthone C and a polyoxygenated xanthone compound which are widely recognized for inducing ROS-mediated mitochondrial dysfunction and apoptosis in TNBC models. The selective cytotoxicity of SUEA, supported by both biological assays and phytochemical characterization, suggests that S. uniflora is a promising source of anticancer molecules. These findings suggest further studies involving compound isolation, molecular characterization and mechanistic pathway analysis to enable the development of targeted anti-TNBC compounds.