Vol. 8, Issue 4 (2019)

Author(s):
Rohina Bashir, Ovais Zargar, Qazi Parvaiz and Rabia Hamid

Abstract:
The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the comparative antiproliferative activity of Thymus linearis essential oil on a panel of cancer cell line. The oil was extracted from Thymus linearis collected from five ecozones using hydrodistillation and screened individually for their cytotoxicity on the cell lines using MTT assay. The TDR essential oil sample exhibited the growth inhibition of the cell lines under study to varying degrees. Compared to other cell lines the two breast cancer cell lines MCF-7 and T47D were more sensitive to the inhibitory effects of TDR essential oil, displaying cytotoxicity maximally against MCF-7 cells; with an IC₅₀ of 79.55µg/mL. Further, a dose dependent colony forming restraint was observed both in terms of size and the number of colonies in comparison to untreated group. TDR essential oil at lower concentration of 80µg/mL showed significant (*p≤0.05) inhibitory effect on colony formation of the order of 29% relative to untreated. The comparative antiproliferative profile of essential oil of Thymus linearis growing wild in Kashmir suggests its chemical polymorphism and study expands its scope to be developed as antitumor agent.