Research Article Antitumor Activity of Ethanolic Extract of Dendrobium formosum in T-Cell Lymphoma: An In Vitro and In Vivo Study Ritika Prasad and Biplob Koch Department of Zoology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India Correspondence should be addressed to Biplob Koch; kochbiplob@gmail.com Received 10 February 2014; Revised 7 April 2014; Accepted 22 April 2014; Published 18 May 2014 Academic Editor: Richard Tucker Copyright © 2014 R. Prasad and B. Koch. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Dendrobium, a genus of orchid, was found to possess useful therapeutic activities like anticancer, hypoglycaemic, antimicrobial, immunomodulatory, hepatoprotective, antioxidant, and neuroprotective activities. he study was aimed to evaluate the anticancer property of the ethanolic extract of Dendrobium formosum on Dalton’s lymphoma. In vitro cytotoxicity was determined by MTT assay, apoptosis was determined by luorescence microscopy, and cell cycle progression was analysed using low cytometry; in vivo antitumor activity was performed in Dalton’s lymphoma bearing mice. he IC 50 value of ethanolic extract was obtained at 350 g/mL in Dalton’s lymphoma cells. Fluorescence microscopy analysis showed signiicant increase in apoptotic cell death in dose- and time-dependent manner which was further conirmed through the resulting DNA fragmentation. Further, low cytometry analysis showed that the ethanolic extract arrests the cells in G 2 /M phase of the cell cycle. he in vivo anticancer activity study illustrates signiicant increase in the survival time of Dalton’s lymphoma bearing mice on treatment with ethanolic extract when compared to control. hese results substantiate the antitumor properties of ethanolic extract of Dendrobium formosum and suggest an alternative in treatment of cancer. Further studies are required regarding the isolation and characterization of bioactive components along with the analysis of molecular mechanism involved. 1. Introduction Nature is the most valuable source of therapeutic compounds as enormous chemical diversity is present in millions of species of plants, animals, marine organisms, and microor- ganisms [1]. Today, cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. In a report by Siegel et al. in 2013, a total of 1,660,290 new cancer cases and 580,350 deaths from cancer were predicted in the United States in 2013 [2]. Cancer chemoprevention was irst deined as “a strategy of cancer control by administration of synthetic or natural compounds to reverse or suppress the process of carcinogenesis” [3]. Nowadays drugs obtained from medicinal plants play a crucial role in the treatment of cancer and most of the plant secondary metabolites and their derivatives have been applied to combat cancer [4, 5]. Orchids are ornamental plants and they are also well known for their medicinal value. hey belong to the family Orchidaceae, with approximately 20,000 species and more than 850 genera. A total of 365 plants, including several orchids, are listed in the earliest known Chinese Materia Medica [6]. In India, the northeastern states are renowned hot spot of orchids with approximately 876 orchid species in 151 genera, which constitutes about 70% of total orchids in India. he local tribe of this region makes use of several orchid plants for variety of folk medicines to cure as they are found to be rich in lavonoids, glycosides, carbohydrates, and other phytochemical contents [7]. Extracts prepared and metabo- lites isolated from the orchid plants were found to pos- sess useful therapeutic activities like diuretic, antirheumatic, anti-inlammatory, anticarcinogenic, hypoglycaemic, antimi- crobial, and neuroprotective activities [8]. Dendrobium is the largest genus of orchids, containing 1,200 species. he Dendrobium genus also possesses immunomodulatory, hep- atoprotective, antioxidant, anticancer, and neuroprotective activities. Medicinal plants from Dendrobium genus are Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2014, Article ID 753451, 11 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/753451