Evaluation of anticancer activity of Chaetomium cupreum extracts against human breast adenocarcinoma cell lines

Background: Fungi are microorganisms which produce a wide variety of biologically active secondary metabolites that could be used for medicinal and pharmaceutical purposes. The Chaetomium cupreum is a natural source of different types of intracellular and extracellular pigments which exhibit various biological properties. Objectives: The main objectives of this study were to evaluate the anticancer property of C. cupreum extracts against human breast adenocarcinoma cell lines. Materials and Methods: The anticancer activity of different extracts of C. cupreum on human breast cancer cells was evaluated using MTT tetrazolium bromide assay. The measurement of mitochondrial membrane potential was evaluated using JC-1 fluorescent dye and reactive oxygen species (ROS) by 2,7-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate dye. The partial purification and characterization of compound was done by chromatography and spectrometry methods. Results: It was found that ethyl acetate extract of C. cupreum showed significant cytotoxic activity against MCF-7 cells with IC50-40 and against MDA-DB231 cells with IC50-75 μg/ml concentration. In subfractions of ethyl acetate, the highest cytotoxic effect was shown by methanol subfraction (44.79%), followed by ethyl acetate subfraction (39.79%) and chloroform subfraction (37.07%) at the concentration of 25 μg/ml after 24 h. The anticancer activity of seco-chaetomugilin on MCF-7 cancer cells was 51.56% at the concentration of 25 μg/ml. In results, seco-chaetomugilin treatment increased depolarization of mitochondrial membrane potential to 16.45% at the concentration of 5 μg/ml and 32.25% at the concentration of 15 μg/ml as compared to 13.47% in untreated cells after 24 h. The results showed that the treatment of seco-chaetomugilin increased ROS generation to 19.6% at the concentration of 5 μg/ml and 26.2% at the concentration of 15 μg/ml as compared to 14% in untreated cells. Conclusion: These results showed that ethyl acetate extract and seco-chaetomugilin pigment induces mitochondria depolarization and ROS production, which leads to cell death. Thus, these results suggested that that pigment seco-chaetomugilin isolated from C. cupreum should further be studied for its anticancer activity on molecular level.