effect of hydroalcoholic extract of ephedra major, momordica charantia, and resveratrol on cytotoxicity and caspase-3 genes expression level in mcf-7 breast cancer cell line

Background: to increase the therapeutic effect of drugs to combat diseases, combination therapy with current chemical drugs and new medicines derived from medicinal plants is necessary. objectives: the present work aimed to investigate the effect of hydroalcoholic extract of two medicinal plants, ephedra major and momordica cacharantia (carla), and resveratrol drug on cell viability and expression levels of caspase-3 gene in mcf-7 cell line. methods: in this experimental study, the hydroalcoholic extraction of tested plants was done with a soxhlet extractor. the mtt assay and real-time pcr were used to determine cell toxicity and caspase-3 gene expression levels, respectively. results: the highest and lowest cytotoxic effects of plant extracts and resveratrol were observed at concentrations of 500 and 150 µg/ml, respectively. the highest level of the caspase-3 gene expression was observed after 72 h of incubation by different concentrations of plant extracts and resveratrol. conclusions: it can be concluded that both plant extracts could influence cell viability in mcf-7 cells via the increase of cell toxicity and expression of caspase-3 gene. thus, these species could be used in the pharmaceutical industry