Efeito do extrato metanólico de Bidens pilosa sobre marcadores de transição epitélio-mesenquimal em linhagens celulares de câncer de mama

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) is a heterogeneous disease with wide biological and molecular complexity, which makes its safe and effective treatment difficult. It is a public health problem with an increasing number of deaths worldwide. Natural products are promising sources of drugs with reduced toxicity and with different mechanisms of action. Bidens pilosa is a plant species with relevant pharmacological activities such as anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, antioxidant and anti-tumor and, in the present study, we aimed to evaluate its effect on breast tumor cells. The methanolic extract (ExM) from the aerial part of B. pilosa was used to treat breast tumor cell lines T47D, MCF-7, MDA-MB-231 and a non-tumoral cell line MCF10A. Cytotoxicity was assessed by the MTT assay after 24 and 48 hours of incubation with ExM at final concentrations of 0.0078125; 0.015625; 0.03125; 0.0625; 0.125; 0.25; 0.5 and 1 μg/ μL. At a concentration of 0.125 μg/ μL (P<0.0001), significant cytotoxicity was observed in the three tumor strains, with the most aggressive triple-negative cell line (MDA-MB-231) exhibiting a cell viability three times lower than the non-tumorigenic one. In addition, the IC50 values were higher for the nontumorigenic strain, demonstrating selectivity of ExM for tumor cells. qPCR assays for the differential quantification of the CDH1, VIM and CK18 genes showed that the extract does not modulate the epithelial-mesenchymal transition mechanism. The results demonstrate a promising activity of the extract, which supports additional studies to obtain its major compound and to elucidate which biological pathways are affected in the BC. Hence, new therapeutic strategies may be suggested.