Introduction: Breast cancer is regarded as one of the most common female cancers in the world. Many efforts have been made to treat the breast cancer, among which surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy can be mentioned. There is an increasing interest regarding using herbal preparations as a promising source of new anti-cancer drugs because of their safety profile and efficient pharmaceutical potentials. Since citrullus colocynthis proposes some cytotoxic effects against cancer, the present study aimed to explore the effect of hydro alcoholic extract of C. colocynthis fruit on the viability and expression level of Caspase-3 in MCF-7 cell line. Methods: In this laboratory study, the MCF-7 breast cancer cells were treated by different concentrations of Citrullus Colocynthis ethanol extract for 24, 48 and 72 h. The extract effect on cell viability was assessed by trypan blue staining. The RNA extraction was performed, and after the construction of cDNA, expression of Caspase 3 was analyzed via Real-Time PCR. Results: The obtained results revealed a noticeable dose and time dependent reduction in viability of C. colocynthis in the treatment group compared to the control samples. Moreover Real-Time PCR results demonstrated that the expression of Caspase3 gene at 48 and 72 hours after extract treatment significantly increased compared to the control cells. Conclusion: It can be concluded that citrullus colocynthis fruit extract can destroy cancer MCF-7 cells, which is resulted from an increase in caspase 3 gene expression.

Keywords: Breast cancer, Caspase3, Citrullus colocynthis

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