Antiproliferative effects of essential oils and their major constituents in human renal adenocarcinoma and amelanotic melanoma cells

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate cytotoxic activity ofPlatycladus orientalis,Prangos asperulaandCupressus sempervirensssp.pyramidalisessential oils and to identify active components involved in inhibition of populationgrowth of human cancer cell lines.Materials and methods: Essential oils were obtainedby hydrodistillation and were analysed by gas chromatography and gas chromatographycoupled to mass spectrometry. Antiproliferative activity was tested on amelanoticmelanoma C32 cells and on renal cell adenocarcinoma cells, using the sulphorhodamineB assay.Results:Cupressus sempervirensssp.pyramidalisleaf oil exerted the highestcytotoxic activity with an IC50value of 104.90μg/mL against C32, followed by activityofP. orientalisandP. asperulaon the renal adenocarcinoma cell line (IC50of 121.93and 139.17μg/mL, respectively).P. orientalisessential oil was also active againstamelanotic melanoma with an IC50of 330.04μg/mL. Three identified terpenes, linalool,β-caryophyllene andα-cedrol, were found to be active on both cell lines tested.Conclusions: Our findings provide novel insights into the field of cytotoxic propertiesof essential oils. This study provided evidence on how cytotoxic activity of the oils isnot always related to their major constituents, except for lower activity found in both celllines forα-cedrol. Interestingly,β-caryophyllene and linalool exhibited comparableIC50values to the commercial drug vinblastine on the ACHN cell line. This opens a newfield of investigation to discover mechanisms responsible for the observed activity.