Evaluation of Standardized Extract of Centella Asiatica on Cell Viability and Repressive Cancer Migration in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Cells in Vitro

Abstract

Centella Asiatica has been traditionally used as herbal medicine to treat various disorders, such as ulcers and psoriatic disease. ECa233 is an herbal extract of Centella Asiatica containing madecassoside (46.3 %) and asiaticoside (41.6 %) that shows a highly acceptable safety profile appropriate for drug development and use as an herbal drug for humans. 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) is a chemotherapeutic agent generally known as the first-line chemotherapy for colorectal cancer. Representative combined chemotherapy with 5-FU, namely the FOLFOX regimen (5-FU, leucovorin, oxaliplatin), has been widely used in hospitals and is typically selected as a chemotherapeutic regimen in prescriptions. However, the unresolved problems appearing in clinical situations are the refusal to accept the chemotherapy leading to drug resistance and the severe side effects after being administered intravenously to the entire body. Therefore, the discovery of a novel pure standard agent to enhance the efficacy of 5-FU and overcome this drug resistance still needs to be explored. To assess the pharmacological activity and safety profile of ECa233 is a major goal in cancer drug discovery. ECa233 was evaluated for its anti-cancer, anti-migration, anti-invasive activities and was explored regarding the safety data on normal cells. The results demonstrated that ECa233 effectively inhibited the cell viability, colony forming, and truly inactivated cell migration/invasion through repressive the MMP-9 invasive factor. Pharmacological interaction with 5-FU was synergism in cancer cells and highly safe to normal cell growth. The results suggest that ECa233 could be used as a combinative drug therapy with standard chemotherapy treatment and other medicinal drugs such as a targeted therapy to treat colorectal cancer patients.