Black Raspberry Inhibits Colon Cancer

COLUMBUS, OhioResearchers at the Ohio State University have discovered cultivar, production site, and stage of maturity of black raspberry extract influence its ability to inhibit colon cancer cells. Their findings are published online ahead of print Feb. 1 in the Journal of Agricultural Chemistry.

Noting black raspberries have been shown to inhibit multiple stages of oral, esophageal, and colon cancer, researchers used an in vitro colon cancer cell mode to  evaluate how black raspberry extract variability conditioned by horticultural factors affected the antiproliferative activity of 75 black raspberry extracts using an in vitro colon cancer cell model. HT-29 cells grown in 96-well plates were treated with freeze-dried extracts at 0.6 and 1.2 mg of extract/mL of medium, and  percent cell growth inhibition for each concentration of the extracts was determined using the sulforhodamine B assay.

They found all extracts significantly inhibited the growth of HT-29 colon cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner, and cell proliferation was significantly influenced by cultivar, production site, and stage of maturity. They noted, The lack of correlation between growth inhibition and extract total phenolic and total monomeric anthocyanin assays suggested horticultural parameters influence bioactivity in a complex manner.