Abstract

Background: Vitamin C (VC) is believed to enhance immunity and is regularly integrated as a supplementary agent during several treatments.

Objective: The green (GC) and roasted (RC) coffee (Coffea arabica) aqueous extracts (0, 125, 250 and 500 μg/ml) combined with VC (50 μg/ml) were examined on the cancerous MCF-7 cell line and normal human lymphocytes.

Methods: Neutral red uptake assay, comet assay, immunocytochemical reactivity for protein expression and mRNA expression of apoptosis-related genes were performed.

Results: A significant (P< 0.05) concentration-dependent increase of apoptotic features, such as morphological changes, and abundant nuclear condensation, altered the expression of p53 and caspase-3 mRNA, down-regulation of Bcl-2 protein as well as the acidic autophagosomal vacuolization in treated cells. The oxidative stress and DNA single-strand breaks were noticed too.

Conclusion: These results suggest that coffee in combination with VC undergoes apoptotic anticancer pathway. This supports the integration of coffee and VC as a valuable candidate for anticancer research and treatments.

Keywords: Coffea arabica, vitamin C, MCF-7, anticancer, apoptosis, protein expression.