author(s)
Rashmi R, N Prakash, HD Narayana Swamy, M Narayana Swamy, D Rathnamma, Suguna Rao, A Sahadev, U Sunilchandra, CR Santhosh, Naveen Kumar S, Wilfred Ruban S, KR Anjan Kumar, Yathish HM, Prashantkumar Waghe and Purushotham KM

abstract
Recently, phytocompounds have gained considerable attention of the scientific community for their effective role in cancer therapy. In the present study, we investigated the cytotoxicity potential of esculin with or without piperine on breast cancer cell lines viz., MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231. The MTT [3-(4, 5- dimethylthiazolyl- 2)-2, 5- diphenyltetrazolium bromide] assay was conducted at 48h incubation to determine percent cell viability. The IC₅₀ values of esculin and piperine for MCF-7 were 20.35 and 17.83μM, respectively. Likewise, IC₅₀ values of esculin and piperine for MDA-MB-231 were 22.65 and 14.28μM, respectively. A combination of esculin (IC₂₅) and piperine (IC₂₅) on MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 showed percent cell viability of 37.90±0.03 and 10.12±0.03, respectively. This study suggests that the cytotoxicity of esculin and piperine is dose-dependent. The in vitro cytotoxicity potential of esculin and piperine alone and in their combination in terms of percent cell viability proved to be more effective on MDA-MB-231 cells.