Investigating the anticancer effects of Uvularia perfoliata

Cancer is one of the leading causes of mortality globally. Current treatments, such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy, have numerous side effects. To create cancer therapies, various studies have investigated the anticancer effects of plants, but present literature fails to mention the potential anticancer effects of Uvularia perfoliata. Despite being used by Native American tribes in salves, no scientific investigation has studied the potential medicinal properties of U. perfoliata. The objective of this study was to identify whether U. perfoliata could be a viable option for future drug discovery research. We hypothesized that if we applied an ethanol extract of U. perfoliata to uveal melanoma cells, 70% or more of the cells would die. Although our findings did not match our a priori value for the magnitude of cancer cell killing, the 0.1% concentration U. perfoliata did significantly decrease melanoma cell viability (p < 0.05). Future testing must be conducted with non-malignant cell lines and higher concentration extracts to understand if U. perfoliata possesses anticancer properties. These additional experiments must be conducted because our extracts were significantly more dilute than similar studies. In addition, the cytotoxic properties of U. perfoliata may also apply to non-malignant cultures, so future experiments should include non-malignant cell lines as a control. However, this is the first study to highlight the potential anticancer effects of U. perfoliata.