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. 2024 Apr 25:18:11779322241248904.
doi: 10.1177/11779322241248904. eCollection 2024.

The Potential Role of Phytochemicals of Juniperus procera in the Treatment of Ovarian Cancer and the Inhibition of Human Topoisomerase II Alpha Activity

Ateeq A Al-Zahrani  1
Affiliations

The Potential Role of Phytochemicals of Juniperus procera in the Treatment of Ovarian Cancer and the Inhibition of Human Topoisomerase II Alpha Activity

Ateeq A Al-Zahrani. Bioinform Biol Insights. .

Abstract

A variety of active chemicals found in medicinal plants can be used to develop new medications with few adverse effects. In vitro and in silico analyses were used to evaluate the anticancer properties of Juniperus procera fruit and leaf extracts. Here, we show that the methanolic extract from J procera fruit and leaf extracts inhibits 2 human ovarian cancer cell lines, A2780CP and SKOV-3. The leaf extract demonstrated strong cytotoxicity against A2780CP with an IC50 of 1.2 μg/mL, almost matching the IC50 of the anticancer medication doxorubicin (0.9 μg/mL). Higher antioxidant activity was observed in the fruit than leaf extract. The molecular docking results showed that the active component, podocarpusflavone A, was the best-docked chemical with the human topoisomerase II alpha enzyme. According to our knowledge, this is the first in vitro study to show the cytotoxicity of J procera extracts against the 2 previously described human ovarian cancer cell lines. The fact that the podocarpusflavone A molecule may have an inhibitory effect on the human topoisomerase II alpha enzyme was also revealed by this first in silico analysis. Our findings imply that the J procera fruit and leaf methanolic extract has anticancer characteristics that may guide future in vivo studies.

Keywords: Juniperus procera (Arar); anticancer activities; enzyme inhibition; in silico; ovarian cancer; protein docking.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The anticancer activity of Juniperus procera fruit and leaf extracts against A2780CP and SKOV-3.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Antioxidant activity using DPPH radical scavenging assay.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Comparison of docked ligands. The figure on the right presents 5GWK structure (gray) with 3 ligands, the native etoposide (red), the generated etoposide (green), podocarpusflavone A (blue). The figures on the top and bottom left present the 3 ligands in closer view.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Podocarpusflavone A-human topoisomerase II alpha interaction contacts.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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