Abstract
Objective
Angiogenesis is an essential process in tumor growth and progression, and thus it represents a promising therapeutic target. Lawsonia inermis (henna) is a widely-used traditional medicine with different biological applications, and its bioactive components, especially lawsone, showed anticancer activity. The objective of this research was to measure the anti-angiogenic and antioxidant properties of Lawsonia inermis leaf ethanolic extract in ex vivo and in vivo systems.
Methods
Soxhlet was used to prepare the ethanolic extract of the Lawsonia inermis leaf. The ex vivo rat aorta ring assay was used to test the anti-angiogenic activity at the concentrations of 100, 50, 25, 12.5, and 6.25 µg/mL. The in vivo chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assay was employed to confirm the anti-angiogenic effect at a concentration of 10 mg/mL. DPPH radical scavenging assay was used to determine the antioxidant activity with a concentration range of 3.125 to 100 µg/mL.
Results
The ethanolic extract demonstrated high anti-angiogenic activity in the rat aorta ring with 65.82% inhibition at 100 µg/mL and dose-dependent inhibition with an IC 50 of 54.2 µg/mL. In the CAM assay, acetylsalicylic acid (positive control) resulted in complete suppression of vascularization, validating the assay system. The extract exhibited a concentration-dependent radical scavenging ability of DPPH radical with an IC 50 value of 0.05 µg/mL.
Conclusions
Lawsonia inermis ethanolic extract has strong anti-angiogenic and antioxidant properties, which implies its possible application as a treatment of angiogenesis-related disorders, such as cancer. The anti-angiogenic effect was confirmed in both ex vivo and in vivo models.