In Vitro Cytotoxicity of Total Alkaloid Extract from Peganum harmala L. Seeds

Objectives: (Investigation the cytotoxicity of total alkaloid extract of Peganum harmala L. seeds against tumor cell lines. Methods: From the seeds of P. harmala total alkaloid was extracted using 80%) methanol, chloroform (at pH2 and pH10 and they chloroforme part was drie to getting the extract of totally alkaloid. The totally alkaloids were revealing of qualitatively by Dragendorff’s, Mayer's and Hager's), reagents and estimated 1quantitatively by Bromocresol green spectrophotometry depending on the curve of atropine calibration. (The activity of cytotoxicity was achieved by using Michigan Cancer Foundation-7 (MCF-7) breast cancer cell line and fetal hepatic cell line (WRL-68) non-tumorigenic by MTT assay. Results: Thet total content of alkal0id of P. harmala extract was 328.62 ± 2.8 mg/100 g dry weight of plant. This extract drop the viability of cells in b0th cell lines, the greatest reduction happened in the concentration 400 μg/ml was 60.2 ± 2.8 % for MCF-7 and 66.5±2.2% for WRL-68. Conclusion: (The alkaloids of P. harmala had variable effects against cancer andy normalal cell lines depending on the type of alkaloid compounds andi their concentration in the extract).