INDIAN DRUGS 57 (12) DECEMBER 2020 51 Keywords: Herbal nano-statins, Pleurotus sajor caju (oyster mushroom), HepG2 cancer cell line, anti- inflammatory, anti-migratory INTRODUCTION Cancer is a broad term for a large group of diseases that can affect any part of the body, and metastasis is a prime cause of death according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Based on their statistics, cancer is the second major cause of morbidity globally accounting for an estimated 9.6 million deaths in 2018. In the world, cancer is responsible for about 1 in every 6 deaths, more than the combined deaths reported from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria 1, 2 . Chemotherapy is a common approach for the management of cancer which is currently used as a remedial, alleviating or as add on competence against it. Various classes of chemotherapeutic medications are used clinically, that have had varying degrees of favorable outcomes, but possess significant undesired side effects that results in their declined utility. Many current chemotherapeutics are shown to kill tumor cells by inducing apoptosis. Statins are among class of drugs that have shown to possess apoptosis-inducing effects. Originally, they were developed to cure hypercholesterolemia way back in 1970s. Statins are known as 3-hydroxy- 3-methylglutaryl- ENHANCED ANTI-INFLAMMATORY AND ANTI-MIGRATORY EFFECT OF HERBAL NANO-STATINS ON HEPG2 CANCER CELLS Mehra Akansha a , Chauhan Sonal b , Jain V.K. a and Nagpal Suman a * (Received 02 September 2020) (Accepted 13 November 2020) ABSTRACT Mushroom (oyster mushroom, Pleurotus sajor caju) is a rich depository of statins, HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors that also act as anti-cancer agents. In the present study, anti-inflammatory and anti-migratory effects of prior synthesized and characterized herbal nano-statins on HepG2 have been discussed for the first time. The results showed that herbal nano-statins were able to inhibit the NO production in dose dependent manner with 93.72 % inhibition at 80 μg/mL of nano-statins and it attained saturation if the dose is further increased. Bulk statins had less potency to inhibit the production of NO (30 % at 100 μg/ mL) as compared to nano-statins. Nano-statins and bulk statins also inhibited the migration of cancer cells by 97.86 % and 53.43 %, respectively, at a concentration of 100 μg/mL. This study might bring in more insights to use herbal nano-statins as an alternative treatment to fight against various other types of cancers and other biomedical complications. a Amity Institute of Advanced Research and Studies (Materials & Devices), Amity University, Noida-201303, UP, India. b Amity Institute of Applied Sciences, Amity University, Noida-201303, UP, India. *For Correspondence: E-mail: snagpal@amity.edu CoA reductase (HMGCR) inhibitors, since they target and inhibit HMGCR, the rate-limiting enzyme in the mevalonate pathway of cholesterol synthesis. On the basis of source, statins can be categorized as natural or fungal-based and synthetic. Lipophilicity and the potential to inhibit HMGCR differs in the two groups that include lovastatin, simvastatin, atorvastatin and others. Different chemical structures, hydrophilicity and metabolic rate are among the several factors that determine the pharmacological activity of statins 3 . Programmed cell death in cell lines derived from tumors in tissue culture was found to be induced by statins, according to many studies conducted, and it implies that the corresponding cancers could be sensitive to statin- specific apoptosis in vivo 4 . Though statins help in curing the diseases, long-term dependency on its therapy might not be a sound alternative because of their dose-based side effects, weak water solubility and low bioavailability once they enter into human body. Therefore, herbal medicines may be preferred as an alternative to combat the same problem and mushroom is one of them. Mushroom is also considered as a store- house of lovastatin, naturally produced fungal derived statin and Pleurotus sajor-caju (oyster mushroom) is one of those varieties of mushroom 5 . https://doi.org/10.53879/id.57.12.12702