Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences

Document Type : Original Article(s)

Authors

1 National Cell Bank of Iran, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran

2 Blood Transfusion Research Center, High Institute for Research and Education in Transfusion Medicine, Tehran, Iran

3 Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Medical University of Hamadan, Hamadan, Iran

4 Department of Molecular Biology, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Background: Natural medicines have been recently considered more reasonable for human use most notably due to their safety and tolerance. HESA-A is a marine-originated herbal medicine with a variety of healing effects. However, its exact biological mechanism is not clear. The pre-sent study aimed at the evaluation of the HESA-A antioxidant effect.
Methods: Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) and human embryonic kidney (HEK293T) cells were treated with different concentrations of HESA-A and H2O2 followed by cell proliferation assays. The antioxidant effect of the HESA-A preparations was evaluated by an antioxidant assay kit.
Results: The viability of CHO and HEK293T cells were about 89% following their incubation with 100 and 200 ng/ml HESA-A, respectively for 1.5 hrs. However, when the cells were incubated with concentrations of 300 ng/ml or more, the cell viability significantly decreased to 48% compare to the control cells. The cytotoxic effects of H2O2 were observed after 2 hrs of incubation of the HEK293T or CHO cells with 10 mM or 16 mM H2O2, respectively, while in the presence of HESA-A the cytotoxicity was significantly decreased. Antioxidant assay revealed that HESA-A scavenges free radicals.
Conclusion: The findings indicate that HESA-A had cytoprotective effects in vitro, and that such an effect might be due to antioxidant properties.

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