• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.69-76
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• 2018

Objectives : Dracocephalum palmatum Stephan (Lamiaceae) is a medicinal plant used by the East-Russian nomads but there were few studies on this plant. This study was to evaluate anti-cancer effects of D. palmatum Stephan leaf hexane fraction on human derived prostate cancer cell death. Methods : The dried leaves of D. palmatum were dissolved in methanol, and hexane fraction (DpLH) was again obtained from lyophilized methanol extract (DpLM). DpLH was investigated by measuring by MTT assay and annexin V/PI staining to evaluate its effects on the cell viability and apoptosis of PC-3 cells. The ROS generations were detected by DCF-DA dye. The protein expressions were confirmed by p-AKT, Bcl-2, Bax, procaspase-3 activities. Results : After treatment of DpLH to PC-3 cells, the cell proliferation was significantly inhibited, and in addition, DpLH treatment also accelerated apoptosis of PC-3 cells. When DpLH was treated to the PC-3 cells, its ROS production significantly decreased. The proportion of all proteins (p-AKT/actin, Bcl-2/Bax and procaspase-3/actin ratios) showed decreasing tendency of expression compared with the control group. Conclusions : As shown in the above results, the extract from D. palmatum inhibits ROS production and promotes cell death, which is considered to be a relatively safe induction of cell death when administered to a living body. In conclusion, these results suggested that DpLH may have anti-cancer effect in human prostate cancer cell.