Centaurea albonitens extract enhances the therapeutic effects of Vincristine in leukemic cells by inducing apoptosis

Drug-induced toxicities and dose-related side effects are the major challenges in the conventional cancer therapy by the chemo drugs. On the other hand, herbal derivatives have obtained a great research interest in the field of therapeutic applications because of their more favorable specifications including less toxicity, cost-effective and more physiologically compatible than the chemical drugs. For this purpose, we evaluated methanolic extract prepared from Centaurea albonitens Turrill alone and in combination with Vincristine (VCR) for its potential cytotoxic effects in NALM-6, REH, NB4 and KMM-1 cell lines by using the various approaches. Centaurea genus is one of the current medicinal plants, which has used in traditional medicine, However, there are rare studies to examine its anticancer properties against hematologic malignant cells. In this study, we demonstrated Centaurea albonitens extract (CAE) induces cytotoxicity through G0/G1 phase arrest followed by apoptosis in a dose- and time- dependent manner, although with varying efficiency. Interestingly, normal cells didn't exhibit significant cytotoxicity after CAE treatment. Moreover, we found that low dose of CAE enhances anti-cancer effects of VCR in pre-B ALL cell lines (NALM-6 and REH). Further investigations validated synergistic anticancer activities of VCR and CAE through inducing apoptosis without significant cell cycle arrest. Taken together, our results demonstrated for the first time that the methanolic extract of Centaurea albonitens can be considered as a potential anticancer agent and/or an enhancer of chemotherapeutic sensitivity of VCR.