Original article Promising anticancer activity of lavender (Lavandulaangustifolia Mill.) essential oil through induction of both apoptosis and necrosis

Abstract

In the current study, potential anticancer and antiproliferative activity of EOs from lavender (Lavandula angustifolia Mill.) were determined against A549, H1299, C6 cancer cells and nontumorous HUVEC cells through induction of both apoptosis and necrosis. Furthermore, the differentiations of the cancer prevention activities of the EOs distilled from first and second year's harvest of the lavender growing under traditional system and plastic mulch were investigated using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT), trypan blue, neutral red uptake assays as well as lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) assay. The EOs exhibited remarkable anticancer and antiproliferative activity against all treated cancer cells, in a dose and time dependent manner. They exerted significantly decreases the cell growth in cancer cells, and also observed higher toxicity towards C6 glioma cells than the A549 and H1299 lung cells. In case of growing conditions of the EOs, higher anticancer and antiproliferative activity were observed under growing plastic mulch as compared to that of traditional system. Furthermore, first year's harvest of the lavender growing under plastic mulch seem to be possessed stronger cytotoxic effect than that of the second year's harvest. Besides, the lysosomal and LDH activity of the EOs were found to be highly in correlation with anticancer activity, and seem to be decreased obviously depending the year. It may be concluded that data obtained from the presented research demonstrates lavender EOs could have possible usage for cancer treatment as an alternative anticancer agent.