It is evident that chemotherapy, which is one of the most preferred methods in cancer treatment, have several disadvantages and decrease the success rate of treatment. Therefore, identification and development of natural anti-cancer agents with less toxicity and side effects has recently become one of the areas of interest. In the present study, we reveal the potential anticancer activities of propolis and curcumin extracts and cisplatin on the breast cancer cell line (MCF-7). Individual and combinatorial treatments of propolis and curcumin was performed. MTT cell viability assay was used to determine the anti-proliferative activities of extracts, and Annexin V/PI double staining flow cytometric method was used to determine induction of apoptosis in breast cancer cells. In our study,the most significant reduction in MCF-7 cell viability was found to be 100 μg/ml for cisplatin, 5 μg/ml for curcumin and 160 μg/ml for propolis. Apoptotic cell ratios were also found to be consistent with MTT findings. The highest proportion of apoptotic cells in the combinatorial study was found to be in the presence of cisplatin + propolis. In conclusion, here we show that combinatorial cisplatin + propolis treatments have significant anti-cancer activities on MCF-7 breast cancer cells in vitro. Studies involving natural products might be a new hope for complementary and alternative medicine by paving the way for clinical studies.
Key words: Breast cancer, curcumin, propolis, phytotherapy, chemotherapy, antitumor
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