Background: Nine
Piper species with betel-like scents are sources of industrial and medicinal aromatic chemicals, but
there is lack of information on cytotoxicity and genotoxicity for human safety, including how these plants impact
human cervical cancer cell line.
Methods: Plant leaves were extracted with hexane and hydro-distilled for essential oils. The extracts and oils were preclinically
studied based on cyto - and genotoxicity using microculture tetrazolium (MTT) and comet assays.
Results: The crude extracts showed an IC
50 in leukocytes and HeLa cells of 58.59 -97.31 mg/ml and 34.91-101.79
mg/ml, the LD
50 is higher than 5000 mg/kg. With lower values than the crude extracts, the essential oils showed an IC
50
in leukocytes and HeLa cells of 0.023-0.059 μg/ml and 0.025-0.043 μg/ml, the LD
50 is less than 50 mg/kg. IC
50 values
showed that the essential oils were highly toxic than the crude extracts. At the level of human genetic materials, the
crude extracts of two species, including
P. betloides
and
P. crocatum
, showed a significant toxicity (
p < 0.05) in
leukocytes. The other samples were non-toxic. The crude extracts of all samples showed significant genotoxicity in
HeLa cells. The essential oils of all studied
Piper species showed insignificant toxicity in leukocytes. For HeLa cells,
the eight-studied species showed significant toxicity in HeLa cells, whereas only
P. submultinerve
showed insignificant
toxicity.
Conclusion: The crude extracts and essential oils should be tested as putative cervical cancer treatments due to less
toxicity in human normal cells.
