The Combined Effect of Aqueous Tulasi Extract and Electrical Pulses on the Viability of HeLa Cells

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study the combined effect of aqueous tulasi extract and electrical pulses on the viability of human cervical cancer cells. HeLa cells were treated with different concentrations of tulasi extract and eight, 1200 V/cm, 100 µs pulses using Electroporator ECM830 and the viability was studied using MTT assay after 24 h. The results show that tulasi extract alone caused significant cell death in a dose dependent manner with IC50 of 118.23 ± 15.06 μg/ml after 24 h. When tulasi extract was combined with the electrical pulse, the viability drastically reduced, with IC50 of 15.37 ± 1.61 μg/ml after 24 h. These results indicate that tulasi could be a potential anti-cervical cancer agent with no side effects and it has better anti-cervical cancer activity when used in combination with electrical pulses.

KEYWORDS:

• Holy basil
• Tulasi leaf extract
• Cervical cancer
• Electrical pulses
• HeLa cells
• An anticancer drug
• Antioxidant

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Jeya Shree Thulasidas is grateful to the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), India, for the fellowship provided under Overseas Visiting Doctoral Fellowship (OVDF) Scheme 2018-2019.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeya Shree Thulasidas

Jeya Shree Thulasidas received her bachelor's degree in electrical and electronics engineering from PSR Engineering College, Sivakasi, India in 2014 and master's degree in high voltage engineering from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University, Chennai, India in 2016. She is a PhD student in the Division of High Voltage Engineering, College of Engineering, Anna University, Chennai, India. At present, she is a overseas visiting doctoral fellow at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, US. Her research interests include the application of pulsed electric field to enhance extraction of bioactive compounds from fruits and to study the synergic effect of bioactive compound and pulsed electric field in treating cancer.

Gowri Sree Varadarajan

Gowri Sree Varadarajan received her doctorate in high voltage engineering in 2008 from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University India. She is presently an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University, India, with over 25 years of teaching experience. She has also contributed a chapter to the book, titled “Electroporation-based Therapies for Cancer: from Basics to Clinical Applications” (Wood Head Publishing, 2014). Her current research topics are application of high voltage engineering for cancer treatment and enhanced bioactive compound extraction, which can be used as a drug for cancer treatment. Email: [email protected]

Lakshya Mittal

Lakshya Mittal is a PhD student at the School of Engineering Technology, Purdue University. He received his MS degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM) in 2015 and subsequently worked as a post graduate engineer trainee at ALSTOM Transport India Ltd. until 2016. His current project is Electrochemotherapy for aggressive forms of breast cancer. He is also interested in looking at protein profile after the Electrochemotherapy treatment on the breast cancer. Email: [email protected]

Raji Sundararajan

Raji Sundararajan is professor at the School of Engineering Technology, Purdue University. She obtained her initial training on electroporation at Johns Hopkins Medical School and has been doing research on electroporation for the past several years. She was the recipient of the 2010 Indiana “Women & Hi-Tech” award for “Distinguished use of technology in healthcare Life Science” and won a prestigious, one- year fellowship to study regenerative medicine therapy using optoinjection and electroporation techniques at Purdue. She is a reviewer of NIH, NSF, US International Science & Technology Center, and US National Research Council proposals, and various scholarly journals including International Journal of Cancer, Molecular Biotechnology, Journal of Biomedical Microdevices, Journal of Anticancer Drugs, and several IEEE Transactions. Email: [email protected]