Cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of zingiberene on different neuron cell lines in vitro

The main objective of this study is to investigate the cytotoxic, genotoxic and antioxidant properties of zingiberene (ZBN) in an in vitro rat brain cell culture study. The cytotoxic effect was determined against the rat neuron and N2a neuroblastoma (N2a-NB) cell lines using the 3,(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay, while the antioxidant activity was assessed using the total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and total oxidative stress (TOS) assays. The effects on DNA damage were also evaluated in this study by the single cell gel electrophoresis assay. The results indicated that ZBN has an anti-proliferative activity suppressing the proliferation of N2a-NB cells at concentrations over 50 mg L-1 and neuron cells at concentrations over 150 mg L-1. In addition, ZBN treatments at higher doses (10-400 mg L-1) led to increases of TOS levels in N2a-NB cell cultures. However 25 mg L-1 of ZBN treatment caused increases of TAC levels in cultured neuron and N2a-NB cell cultures while ZBN at doses of 10-400 mg L-1 did not increase the number of total damage score in both cell lines. This study clearly indicates that ZBN has a significant potential to be used as a natural anticancer agent in cultured N2a-NBs.