Phenolic compounds of plant origin and cell death

Phenolic compounds of natural origin have been shown to possess many pharmacologically and nutritionally interesting properties. These compounds are abundant in fruits, berries and vegetables, and included also in normal human diet sometimes even in high concentrations. The aim of this work was to develop a cell model to study the effects of polyphenolic compounds in the modulation of apoptosis, a programmed cell death. Defects in apoptosis can result in pathological conditions, e.g. cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. The apoptotic inducing properties of two polyphenols, i.e. curcumin and resveratrol, and some natural extracts rich in phenolics, i.e. basil, ginger, laurel and parsley, in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cell line were studied. The cells were treated with different compounds for 12h and the expression of p53 and β-actin was examined using Western blot technique. Arabinoside cytosine (AraC) was used as a positive control to induce apoptosis. Our results show that the addition of curcumin (25 and 50µM) and resveratrol (100µM) leads to an increase in p53 levels and the treatment with high concentrations of laurel and basil extracts leads to an increased cell death in SH-SY5Y cells. Further examinations of cell viability are in progress using MTT and LDH assays.