the protective effect of boesenbergia rotunda extract on cisplatin-exposed human embryonic kidney-293 cells by inhibiting the expression of kidney injury molecule-1, neutrophil gelatinase associated-lipocalin, nf-κb, and caspases

Introduction: acute kidney injury (aki) is a major problem in platinum-based chemotherapy patients. boesenbergia rotunda can induce the generation of osteoblast cells and significantly increase pancreatic antioxidant enzyme activities; therefore, this study aimed to investigate the cytotoxicity of cisplatin on human embryonic kidney-293 (hek-293) cells and the protective impact of the ethanol extract of b. rotunda (eebr) against such conditions. methods: cytotoxicity was assessed using the cck-8/wst-8 reagent, while the protective activity was assayed on 1 µg/ml cisplatin-exposed hek-293 cells by quantifying the expression of nephrotoxicity biomarkers, e.g., kidney injury molecule-1 (kim-1) and neutrophil gelatinase associated-lipocalin (ngal), nuclear factor-kappab (nf-κb), apoptotic caspase-3, and caspase-7 genes, in cisplatin-exposed hek-293 cells. results: cisplatin was confirmed as highly toxic against the hek-293 cells (ic50 = 2.5145 μg/ ml), whereas quercetin was of moderate toxicity (ic50 = 185.6225 μg/ml). eebr revealed an ic50 = 40.0655 μg/ml. moreover, eebr concentrations of 5, 10, and 20 µg/ml confirmed its remarkable protective activity against cisplatin-exposed hek-293 cells (p=0.031, 0.014, 0.046, respectively) compared to the cisplatin-treated cell lines without treatment. the quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (pcr) revealed that a higher concentration of eebr significantly suppressed the expression of kim-1, while lower concentrations of eebr significantly inhibited ngal and nf-κb genes. higher concentrations of eebr reduced the expression of caspase-3. all concentrations of eebr stimulated the expression of caspase-7. conclusion: the significant protective activity observed in this study indicated that eebr might be beneficial in protecting kidney cells against cisplatin.