study effect of anti cancer ethanol extract dunaliella salina isolated from hoz-soltan against squamous cell carcinoma in vitro

aquatic plants have been used prevalently in china since 3000 years ago due to having various chemical compounds for diseases prevention and cure. dunaliella salina is one of the micro algae in marine ecosystems containing beta-carotene, retinal, apocarotenoides, ketones, aldehydes and epoxides which enable it to absorb free radicals and produce singlet oxygen.  in many studies, the anti-cancer and anti-oxidant effects of these chemical compounds have been confirmed. in this study, squamous cell skin cancer was used. the main goal of this research was to study the killing effects of the ethanol extract from the mentioned alga against squamous cell carcinoma in vitro through using tetrazolium salt under in vitro conditions. dunaliella salina was collected from hoz-soltan salt lake located in the northeast of qom. algae were cultured on johnson medium. algae mass were purified with pbs and then freeze dried. a431 cell line obtained from pasteur institution was cultured in rpmi medium containing fbs 10%. cells were incubated with 5% co2 in presence of different concentrations 0, 6.25, 12.5, 25, 50 and 100 μg/ml of extracts in time periods of 6, 24, and 48 hours. results of the statistical analysis showed that there was a significant difference among various extract concentrations on death cells in 24 h and 48 h incubation (p < 0.05). lc50 of different concentrations of extract against skin carcinoma cell line were evaluated in incubation period of 6, 24, and 48 hours. lc50 results after 48 hours showed value of 46.6 6 μg/ml.  the ethanol extract of dunaliella algae was analyzed by hplc in order to evaluate the available beta carotene in algae. our results confirm the killing effect of ethanol extract of dunaliella against line squamous cell carcinoma. with increasing extract concentration and incubation time, death of cells on the skin cancer cell line increased. therefore, dunaliella can be considered as a strong chemopreventive agent and anti cancer against this cell line.