Evaluation of the anticancer potential of Hexadecanoic acid from brown algae Turbinaria ornata on HT–29 colon cancer cells

Turbinaria ornata is brown marine macroalgae contains diverse bioactive components exhibiting various biomedical properties. This study intends to analyze the inhibitory effect of Hexadecanoic acid (HA) of T. ornata on HT-29 human colon cancer cells. The isolated compound were characterized using UV, FT-IR and GC–MS analysis respectively. The HA was treated in HT-29 human colon cancer lines and the cell growth inhibition was determined by MTT assay. The antioxidant effect of HA was evaluated by DPPH and Superoxide radical scavenging assay. The IC50 value of DPPH and Superoxide radical was 70.62 μg/ml and 71.41 μg/ml, respectively. Thus, in vitro anticancer activity of HA acts as potential cell growth inhibitor with IC50 value of 36.04 μg/ml. Apoptosis associated factors like apoptosis induction were observed by AO/EtBr staining, ROS formation was determined by 2′,7′–Dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate and cell distribution was analyzed by flow cytometry. HA exhibits 77.83% of apoptotic cells and increasing the fluorescence intensity in a concentration-dependent manner, which revealed ROS formation. Cell cycle analysis exposed that cells were inhibited in the G0/G1 phase. This study explored that HA may be potential anticancer materials in future.