In-vitro and In-silico anticancer activity of parasitic tea plant Scurrula Atropurpurea (Blume) Danser against Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer is one of the deadly disease in Indonesia. Recently, the benefits of plants as a herbal medicine have been studied thoroughly, following so many epidemological evidence about plants activities to prevent the progression of some diseases and act as drug for treatment. This study was aimed to identify flavonoid component(s) from Scurrula atropurpurea (Blume) Danser (SAD) as anti-cancer agent. In this study, we examined the potency of flavonoid of SAD in-vitro and in-silico for inhibition related to proliferation and induction of apoptosis in HeLa cells. We found that the active compounds from chloroform extracts (flavanon, dihydroflavonol and catechin), ethanolic extract (EGCG, flavonol and flavon) and n-Hexane (flavanon, dihydroflavonol and flavon) of SAD are effectively inhibit the proliferation and induce the apoptosis of HeLa cells. The IC₅₀ values of chloroform, ethanolic and n-hexane extracts of SAD were 96,15 μg/ml, 298,81 μg/ml and 498,66 ng/ml, respectively. Computational study show that chloroform and ethanolic extract are the best for increasing expression of p53 protein that have crucial role in induction of apoptosis and inhibit the cell proliferation. It can be concluded that in-vitro and insilico approach from SAD extracts show that the active compound can act as anticancer through the activation of p53, by enhancing the expression of p53. So the active compound is potential for anti-cancer agent in the future.