Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2018) 7(1): 1767-1775 1767 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2018.701.214 In Vitro Cytotoxic Activity of Chelidonium majus extract using Different Types of Cell Lines Yasir B. Fadhil*, Khulood W. Alsammarraie, Nedhal Abdul Mohaimen and Zainab Yasin Mohammed Department of Biotechnology, College of Science, Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Chelidonium majus L. (poppy family), known as greater celandine, the plant grows wild in parts of Asia, North America, Southern and Central Europe (Colombo and Bosisio, 1996). Due to their notable pharmacological effects, Ch. majus is widely used in traditional and modern medicine for the treatment of liver diseases, gastrointestinal tract, and there are also some data which demonstrated the use of this herb for the prevention and treatment of cancer and tumors (Venkatesh et al., 2011; De Melo et al., 2011). The plant contains, isoquinoline alkaloids as tertiary and quaternary benzo[c] phenanthridine alkaloids such as (sanguinarine, chelidonine, chelerythrine, berberine, protopine and coptisine), flavonoids, and phenolic acids (Colombo and Bosisio, 1996; Barreto et al., 2003). Both crude extracts of C. majus and purified compounds derived from it exhibits a wide variety of biological activities that includes, anti-inflammatory (Lee et al., 2007), antimicrobial International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 7 Number 01 (2018) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Cancer is becoming a health problem in all over the world, searching for anticancer therapy from plants natural products has been one of the sustainers of cancer chemotherapy approximately for the past half a century. Chelidonium majus (Poppy Family) is a plant which is distributed in nature and has been used as a traditional medicine. The plant extract showed high content of alkaloids which revealed cytotoxic effect in a cell type and dose dependent way. Cytotoxic analysis of alkaloids extract from Chelidonium majus using MTT assay on different cell lines. 100 grams of the plant material powdered and extracted with methanol using Soxhlet installation, the extract was subjected farther more for acid-base extraction and purification with chloroform. Cytotoxic effect of total alkaloid was estimated using MTT-assay manufacturer’s instructions. The total alkaloid extract of C. majus exhibited remarkably significant cytotoxic effect on (Hep-G2, MCF-7 and A-549) cell lines in a dose dependent and cell type dependent manner. The extract illustrated considerable cytotoxic activity against various types of cancer cell lines in vitro. The antitumor activity was extremely efficient in a dose dependent manner it displayed decreased viability of tumor cells. Keywords Chelidonium majus, Cell culture, MTT assay Accepted: 14 December 2017 Available Online: 10 January 2018 Article Info