The Bioactive Ingredients in Niuli Lactucis Agrestibus Possess Anticancer Effects

In the field of medicine, natural treatments are becoming increasingly vital towards the cure of cancer. We investigated the effect of various concentrations of Niuli​ Lactucis Agrestibus​ crude extract on the survival percentage and proliferation rate of COLO320DM adenocarcinoma cells. Our experimental process consisted of the following methods: a Trypan Blue Cell exclusion assay for viability, a cancer cell migration assay, and a protein expression test. These tests were performed using varying concentrations of crude extract to test the impact of the chemicals in the extract on colorectal cancer cells. Our results for the cell viability test showed that the crude extract significantly increased the death rate of colon cancer cells, but not of healthy cells. Furthermore, the results suggested that increasing the concentration of crude extract inhibited colon cancer cell migration. In addition, we observed that the Niuli extract significantly upregulated the expression of p21 and p27, two key proteins in the cell cycle. These results indicate that the presence of bioactive ingredients in Niuli lettuce can exhibit anti-colon cancer properties. Further experimentation will be carried out to purify and identify the chemicals found within the crude extract that contain the potential for the treatment of colorectal cancer.