DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2022.v10i02.003

Pages: 170-175

Leukaemia is an aggressive blood malignancies characterized by abnormal accumulation and proliferation of WBCs. Among children younger than 15 years, leukaemia consider the most common type of cancer which accounting 30% of all diagnosed malignancies. The Saudi Cancer Registry (SCR) reported that leukaemia ranked as the 5th type of cancer among both male and female. Because of the undesirable side-effects of the chemotherapy commonly used for leukaemia treatment such as high toxicity and development of secondary cancer, the search for novel and new promising treatment with fewer side-effects and higher therapeutic efficiency is still a priority goal. Using bioactive compounds from natural sources was an effective treatment for a variety of blood cancer. Thus, the aim of this study was to use the bioactive compound Apigenin to treat human lymphoid leukaemia cell line MOLT-3 with three different doses (25, 50, 100 µM) for 24 h. The results of this study showed that cellular proliferation was significantly reduced with 25, 50 and 100 µM Apigenin. In addition, significant increase in apoptotic induction was demonstrated when assessed with Annexin V-FITC/ PI and Caspase-3 substrate based on flow cytometry. Cell cycle arrest was significantly reported at S phase within MOLT-3 cells in a dose response manner. Thus, the finding of this study suggested that Apigenin is a potent and efficient anticancer compound through its activity of blocked cell proliferation, apoptotic induction and cell cycle arrest. However, further studies are required to investigate if the dietary intake of Apigenin might interfere with chemotherapeutic treatment of leukaemia.