GRAVIOLA FRUIT AND LEAF EXTRACTS EFFECT ON CHONDROSARCOMA CELL LINE (JJ012) AND CHONDROCYTE CELL LINE (C28) PROLIFERATION. AN EX-VIVO STUDY.

ABSTRACT

           The Amazon Rainforest, is home to many different plants and animals such as the Graviola fruit. The traditional use of Graviola was to fight bacterial and fungal infections, fever, digestive problems, high blood pressure, and recently it has been described beneficial effects against some types of carcinomas including breast, pancreas and colon. However, nothing has been described within the sarcoma field; being the main purpose of this experiment to explore the effect of this fruit into the proliferation rate of Chondrosarcoma cells. In order to test this hypothesis, an ex-vivo study conducted in a biohazard safety level 2 laboratory was performed. A Rapid Cell Proliferation Kit (Calbiochem®, San Diego, California) along with cultured Chondrosarcoma cell lines labeled “JJ012” ,and cultured chondrocytes cells lines labeled “C28” were used. Standard procedures including the use of WST-19 to measure proliferation rate of cells through absorbance (450nm) were applied. Proliferation rates of JJ012 and C28 cell lines were measured at 24,48, and 72 hours after the application of Graviola’s fruit and leaf extracts. There was an increased cell proliferation in both groups of cell lines (JJ012 and C28) at 24, 48 and 72 hours. Based on this results, it was concluded that using Graviola fruit and leaf extracts, could increased cell proliferation of Chondrosarcoma cells, and thus being dangerous to use in this condition; in the other hand, the increased proliferation of C28 cells could be an encouraging finding towards potential treatments of conditions involving chondrocytes damage such as osteoarthritis.