In vitro anticancer activity and high-performance liquid chromatography profiles of Aquilaria subintegra fruit and seed extracts

Aquilaria subintegra produces agarwood (a resin-infused wood) in response to wound. several studies have shown the anticancer properties of the resin and other parts of this plant. in this study,the fruits and seeds of a. subintegra were processed using ethanol,methanol and n-hexane solvents to yield extracts with different polarities. the extracts were then individually treated against ovarian,breast and colorectal cancer cell lines for 72 hours. the sulforhodamine b assay was performed to obtain the percentage of viable cells and half-maximal inhibitory concentrations (ic50 values) for each extract. the ethanolic extract obtained from unripe fruit showed higher anticancer activity (ic50 < 0.1 μg ml-1) than the methanolic and n-hexane fruit extracts. in contrast,the n-hexane and methanolic extracts from seed were found to be inactive (ic50 > 100 μg ml-1). chemical profiling of the extracts using high-performance liquid chromatography detected the presence of mangiferin in the fruit extracts that was also active when tested in the respective cancer cell lines. © forest research institute malaysia.