In vitro study on cancer-preventive activity of the water extract from jelly fig (Ficus awkeotsang Makino) seeds

Jelly fig (Ficus awkeotsang Makino) achenes are the seeds of a native woody vine that grows on 800-1800 m high hillsides in Taiwan. In the present study, a water extract from jelly fig seeds (WEJFS) was prepared to investigate the cytotoxicity on rat hepatocyte clone 9 cells, and the protective effect on clone 9 cells and their DNA against oxidative stress damage. The growth inhibition on three cancer cell lines, namely mouse colon cancer CT-26, human hepatoma HepG2 and breast cancer MCF-7 were also studied. Components from ultrafiltration and ammonium sulfate fractionations were analyzed for their activities on the growth inhibition of HepG2 cancer cells. Results showed that WEJFS at 0-200 μg total solids/mL concentration had no cytotoxicity on Clone 9 cells, and that WEJFS inhibited the hydrogen peroxide induced damage in Clone 9 cells as shown by the caspase-3 activity, SubG1 (%), and DNA fragmentation. The anticancer activities on the above-mentioned cancer cell lines were also shown. Among them, CT-26 and HepG2 cells were inhibited more effectively. Filtrates of ultrafiltration within different membrane cut-off ranges were used to test the activity of growth inhibition from WEJFS. The 3.0-10.0 kDa fraction exhibited the highest inhibition ability on HepG2 cells. SDS-PAGE of the fraction found a major band at 7 kDa. The 3.0-10.0 kDa fraction was found without concanavalin A sepharose affinity column binding ability. Among the saturated ammonium sulfate precipitation fractions, the 40-80% fraction showed the highest growth inhibition ability on HepG2 cells. Protein was found to be the major component in the fraction. In conclusion, these results suggested that WEJFS can be a decent potential agent for chemoprevention of cancers.