Red grape seed extract and its compound resveratrol exert cytotoxic effect to various human cancer lines.

Modern medicinal agents currently available for treatment of cancers are very expensive, toxic, and less effective in treating some of the disease. Thus, one must investigate further in detail the agents derived from natural sources, such as grape seed, for the prevention and treatment of cancer and disease. In recent years interest of researchers has focused on grape seed and nowadays scientists have used extracts of grape seed to treat different health problems including cancer. We examined the cytotoxic effect of red grape seed extract (GSE) and its main compound resveratrol (RES) on different human cancer cell lines representing various solid tumors and hematological malignancies at the same time. Red GSE was prepared by using 1, 1, 1, 2- Tetrafluoroethane extraction method. Cytotoxicity of the extract and RES was evaluated by using trypan blue dye exclusion method and MTT assay. The results of our study show that GSE and RES have cytotoxic activities in varying degree in several cancer cell lines. There has not been any study evaluating the GES and RES in the same cell lines and in the same conditions. But, it is still needed to have more pre-clinical and laboratory studies to validate the usefulness of these agents either alone or in combination with existing therapy.