Studying the Inhibitory Effect of Saffron Extract on Adenocarcinoma of Colon Cell Line

We aimed to evaluate the antigenotoxic and cytotoxic effects of saffron as an endemic plant in our region Human gastric adenocarcinomatous cells (AGS) and colon cells were cultured in Dulbecco''s modified Eagle''s medium (DMEM) containing 10% FBS under standard conditions at 37°C in a 5% CO2-humidified incubator. The 2×105 cells in 200ul of complete medium were introduced to each well. Then MTT assay was used to measure the cellular changes for 200، 400، 800، 1200 and 2000 µg to ml extract in three studied cell lines AGS، HT125 and L929. The L929 cells showed minor changes during the first 24 and 48 hours with extract concentrations of 2000 and 1600، respectively. But during the 72-hour interval significant changes in morphology took place in the same concentrations. While the decrease in AGS cells was more obvious، in the concentration of 2000، the live cell population reduced to 45%. No significant result was obtained in morphology and MTT test for HT125 cells. This study results support the increasing evidence that naturally occurring saffron extract may have an important role in cancer chemoprevention.