Anticancer, antioxidant activity and molecular docking studies of saccharumoside-B

The present study reports antioxidant potential, the in-vitro antiproliferative activity of saccharumoside-B, and molecular docking studies on the binding affinity of saccharumoside-B towards various proteins involved in breast cancer pathogenesis.

The in-vitro antioxidant activity of saccharumoside-B was determined by DPPH, superoxide and nitric oxide free radical scavenging assays. The antiproliferative activity was evaluated in-vitro by MTT assay. The binding affinity of saccharumoside-B towards the HSP90, HER2, human estrogen receptor and tyrosine-protein kinase C-SRC were determined by the molecular docking studies.

Saccharumoside-B showed a significant dose-dependent antioxidant activity and potent dose-dependent antiproliferative effect on the MCF-7 breast cancer cell line (IC₅₀ = 22.57±0.39μM) among all other cell lines studied. Tamoxifen was used as a positive control for MCF-7 cell line (IC₅₀ = 27.97±1.07μM). The IC₅₀ of saccharumoside-B on normal MCF-10A cell line (IC₅₀>1000μM) showed a promising safety profile, whereas tamoxifen’s IC₅₀ on MCF-10A normal cell line was found to be 29.6 ± 0.84 μM. The molecular docking analysis revealed that saccharumoside-B was inserted into the active site pockets of all the tested proteins involved in the breast cancer pathogenesis with varying binding affinities.

The antioxidant studies revealed the potential antioxidant effect of saccharumoside-B. The in-vitro and in-silico studies are indicating the safe and multiple target protein inhibitory potential of saccharumoside-B against breast cancer. This study suggests that saccharumoside-B can be developed into a new class of anticancer drugs with a high safety profile in the future.