الفهرس 
Introduction .Only 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Tongue carcinoma is the most aggressive type of oral cancer and the most common type that cause metastasis due to the extensive blood supply and the high liability of angiogenesis. The most common and effective treatment approaches of cancer are surgical removal, chemotherapy and radiotherapy or combination of them. However, they have many aggressive side effects.
Therefore researchers began to be directed towards natural products. Medicinal herbs can be advantageous in cancer therapy by inhibiting growth and progression of cancer cells, boosting immunity, decreasing recurrences and metastasis and increasing 5-year survival rate. Moreover, have fewer side effects and toxicity and show a synergistic effect when combined with radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) are rich in polyphenolic compounds with strong anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Ellagitannins including punicalagin are the most bioactive polyphenols in pomegranates. Punicalagin is tested on many cell lines as colon, breast, prostate and lung cancer cell lines and showed anticancer activities by acting on many pathways of carcinogenesis including angiogenesis.
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the cytotoxic and antiangiogenic effect of Punicalagin on tongue squamous cell carcinoma cell line (HNO-97).
The IC50 dose of Punicalagin on HNO-97 cells was calculated using MTT assay and was used in the study (185µmol/ml).The study also evaluated the antiangiogenic effect of Punicalagin through observing its effect on blood vessel formation by in-vitro tube formation assay. In addition to that the effect of Punicalgin on gene expression of TGF-β in HNO-97 cells was evaluated using quantitative PCR.
Our results showed that Punicalagin has a cytotoxic effect on HNO -97 cell line in concentration dependent manner.
Also, Punicalagin inhibited angiogenesis by decreasing the number of tubules, number of junctions, tubule length and number of lobules of endothelial cells as shown in tube formation assay indicating that punicalagin is a strong antiangiogenic agent.
Statistical analysis showed a statistically significant difference between level of TGF-β gene expression in human HNO-97 cells treated with 185 µmol/ml punicalagin after 24 hours and untreated control group, showing that punicalagin caused down regulation of TGF-β gene.
Therefore, it could be concluded that punicalagin is a cytotoxic and antiangiogenic drug on human tongue squamous cell carcinoma cell line.