Effect of Eggplant Skin in the Process of Apoptosis in Cancer Cells

The process of programmed and physiological cell death, or apoptosis, is generally characterized by distinct morphological characteristics and energy-dependent biochemical mechanisms. Apoptosis normally removes old, damaged, excessive and harmful cells and is essential for tissue homeostasis. Cancer is a disease in which damaged cells do go through apoptosis and ultimately uncontrolled cell division results in the formation of a malignant tumor. Stomach cancer is the most common cancer in Iran with about 7751 affected in the year of 1387. This is about 10.17% of the total male and female population per year. Unfortunately, existing treatment options are often aggressive with harmful side effects for the patient. In this study, we decided to prepare anti-cancer drugs from natural ingredients such as eggplant skin which is rich in antioxidants. The primary hypothesis of this study was that due to the presence of compounds containing antioxidants in eggplant skin, the extract should be able to destroy cancer cells by activating their apoptosis. This hypothesis was examined by MTT colorimetric method in two series of cells: gastric cancer cells (AGS) and normal fibroblasts cells (FIB). The yellow MTT salt becomes an insoluble purple formazan by dehydrogenase enzymes in the active mitochondria of cells. The results of this study show that eggplant skin extracts in concentrations of 2.5 μM have a high cytotoxic effect on gastric cancer cell lines, which could be due to the induction of apoptosis in these cells and the least effect on normal fibroblasts cells. Therefore, eggplant skin extract has a positive effect on the apoptosis of cancer cells and can be used in the production of stomach cancer drugs.