ORIGINAL ARTICLE Antioxidant, anticancer, apoptosis properties and chemical composition of black truffle Terfezia claveryi Saad Sabbar Dahham a , Sawsan S. Al-Rawi a,c , Ahmad H. Ibrahim a,b,c , Aman Shah Abdul Majid b , Amin Malik Shah Abdul Majid a, * a EMAN Testing and Research Laboratories, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia b Integrative Medicine, Advanced Medical and Dental Institute, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia c Biology Department, University of Zakho, Duhok, Kurdistan Region, Iraq Received 1 August 2015; revised 19 December 2015; accepted 17 January 2016 KEYWORDS Black truffle; Antioxidant; Cancer; Angiogenesis; T. claveryi Abstract Desert truffles are seasonal and important edible fungi that grow wild in many countries around the world. Truffles are natural food sources that have significant compositions. In this work, the antioxidant, chemical composition, anticancer, and antiangiogenesis properties of the Terfezia claveryi truffle were investigated. Solvent extractions of the T. claveryi were evaluated for antioxidant activities using (DPPH, FRAP and ABTS methods). The extracts cytotoxicity on the cancer cell lines (HT29, MCF-7, PC3 and U-87 MG) was determined by MTT assay, while the anti-angiogenic efficacy was tested using ex-vivo assay. All extracts showed moderate anticancer activities against all cancer cells (p < 0.05). The hexane extract inhibited the brain cell line (U-87 MG) with an IC 50 of 50 lg/ ml and significantly promoted cell apoptosis through the mitochondrial pathway and DNA fragmen- tation p < 0.001. The ethanol extract demonstrated potent antioxidants; DPPH, FRAP, and ABTS with an IC 50 value of 52, 48.5 and 64.7 lg/ml, respectively. In addition, the hexane and ethyl acetate extract significantly (p < 0.001) inhibited the sprouting of microvessels by 100% and 81.2%, at 100 lg/ml, respectively. The GC analysis of the most active extract (hexane) showed the presence of several potent phytochemicals such as stigmasterol, beta-Sitosterol, squalene, lupeol, octadeca- dienoic acid, and oleic acid. Ó 2016 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 1. Introduction The first reference of traditional medicinal plant use, dates back to 4000 years ago, where it was depicted on a Sumerian clay table that records remedies for various diseases (Kong et al., 2003). Desert truffles have been documented as medici- nal food in Chinese, Greek and Egyptian civilization, and were called the miracle of nature in Mesopotamia (Wang and * Corresponding author. Tel.: +60 124430527; fax: +60 46534582. E-mail addresses: hawk_dijla@yahoo.com (S.S. Dahham), sawsan. hameed@uoz.ac (S.S. Al-Rawi), abraihimi@yahoo.com (A.H. Ibra- him), aman@usm.com (A.S. Abdul Majid), aminmalikshah@gmail. com (A.M.S. Abdul Majid). Peer review under responsibility of King Saud University. Production and hosting by Elsevier Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences (2016) xxx, xxx–xxx King Saud University Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences www.ksu.edu.sa www.sciencedirect.com http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sjbs.2016.01.031 1319-562X Ó 2016 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Please cite this article in press as: Dahham, S.S. et al., Antioxidant, anticancer, apoptosis properties and chemical composition of black truffle Terfezia claveryi. Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sjbs.2016.01.031