Investigating and Comparing the Effect of Portulaca oleracea, Vaccinium myrtillus, and Berberis vulgaris on Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma in an Vitro Study

Abstract

Background and Aim: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a growing health problem worldwide, for which standard treatment strategies have failed to increase its recovery rate significantly. In recent decades, many studies have investigated herbal or natural compounds for the prevention and treatment of OSCC. The present study was performed to investigate the effects of the extract of Portulaca oleracea seed, Berberis vulgaris, and Vaccinium myrtillus fruit on the OSCC. Experimental procedure: Firstly, the herbal samples were purchased from the medicinal plant market and each one of the samples was extracted. Afterward, SCC-15 cells were purchased from the Iranian Biological Resource Center. MTT test was used to evaluate cell proliferation and to measure the transcription rate of ki67, miR-4492, and miR-877-5p genes using Real-time PCR. Finally, the western blot test was used to measure the translation rate of b-cell lymphoma 2 and matrix metalloproteinase-2 genes. Quantitative variables of the present study were described as mean and standard deviation and the three-way ANOVA was used via SPSS ver. 25. an independent t-test was used. P-value< 0.05 was considered a statistically significant level. Results and Conclusion: Briefly, the findings of the present study showed that all three extracts had significant effects on growth suppression, apoptosis induction, and OSCC metastasis. Also, the triple (PVB) combination and Portulaca-Berberis (PB) combination were shown to be the most effective. This result indicates the anti-cancer synergistic effect of these extracts especially P and B, on suppressing OSCC, which should be confirmed in future animal and human studies.