Chemical Compositions and Anticancer Activity of Essential Oil from Houttuynia cordata Thunb.

Abstract

This work described the investigation of chemical compositions and in vitro evaluation of anticancer activity of the essential oil obtained from Houttuynia cordata Thunb. against HepG2 (hepatocarcinoma), MCF-7 (breast cancer) and NCI-H187 (small cell lung cancer). The volatile essential oils compositions of H. cordata were analyzed by GC and GC/MS techniques. The main constituents were 2-undecanone (48.61%), b-myrcene (11.94%), (Z)-b-ocimene (11.59%), 2-decanone (4.99%) and g-terpinene (2.62%). The essential oil exhibited highest cytotoxic and selective activity against NCI-H187 cell lines with IC₅₀ value of 17 ??g mL^-1, but was non-cytotoxic to HepG2 and MCF-7 human cancer cell lines. Furthermore, the essential oil also showed cytotoxic effect to Vero cells with IC₅₀ value of 42 ??g mL^-1. Therefore, according to these results, we suggest that the essential oil from H. cordata might be another potential source for the discovery of new drugs to treat lung cancer and could be considered for the use of this plant.