The chemical components, antioxidant and anticancer activities of ziziphus jujube extracts from Turkey

Abstract

The bioactive components which are nutritionally and medically important of jujube fruit have been shown to vary with growing conditions. In this study, the cytotoxic effect of Ziziphus jujube fruit, which is in two different stages of growth, on cancer cells was investigated. Firstly, the fruit extracts were investigated by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to determine chemical composition. Procyanidine, ascorbic acid and fumaric acid were determined as the main component of both extracts. The antioxidant activities of fruit extracts were also determined. It found that immature fruit extract has the highest antioxidant activity due to their high amounts of procyanidine and ascorbic acid. The cytotoxic effect of jujube fruit extracts was analyzed on prostate cancer (PC3), colon cancer (HT-29) and also normal human vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) with MTT test. The jujube extracts inhibited cell proliferation in PC3 at 24h. The pro- and anti-apoptotic gene expression levels were also tested in PC3 cells by Real-Time PCR. It was found that pro-apoptotic genes, Bax and Bak mRNA expression were increased in PC3 cells which were treated jujube extracts. It didn't find any cytotoxic effects of jujube extract on HUVEC and HT-29 cells. These results showed that jujube extract's cytotoxic effect on cancer is tissue specific.