Investigation of anti-inflammatory, antibiofilm, antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of cyclamen hederifolium (primulaceae)

Abstract

Cyclamen L. is a tuberous geophyte, and some species of this genus have been used for their biological activities in folk medicine. However, studies on the tuber of Cyclamen hederifolium, which is known to contain saponins, are limited. In the present study, some biological activities of C. hederifolium tuber extract were investigated, along with its total saponin content. The antioxidant activity of the extract was performed by DPPH radical scavenging and metal chelating methods. To test the anti-inflammatory activity of the extract, LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophage cells were treated in subsequent experiments, and the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-alpha, IL -113, IL-6 and IL-12) and nitric oxide (NO) were measured by ELISA and Griess assay, respectively. Also, the antibacterial and antibiofilm activities of the extract were evaluated. While the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of the extract were determined to be 1.56 mg/mL for both S. aureus and E. faecalis, the highest percentage biofilm inhibition of the extract was detected on E. faecalis at 80.70%. The extract potently scavenged DDPH radical (IC50 4.22 mu g/mL) and showed the ability of metal chelating (24.12 mg EDTAEs/g). According to the anti-inflammatory activity tests, C. hederifolium inhibited not only NO production, but also the levels of proinflammatory cytokines. As for the cytotoxic activity, the extract caused a decline in SH-SY5Y (34.03%) and HeLa (72.18%) cancer cell viability compared to the control cells. The results suggest that the tuber extract of C. hederifolium has some biological properties that may be due to the presence of saponins for pharmaceutical applications.