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Abstract

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are chemical compounds ubiquitous in the environment; many of which are known human and animal carcinogen. The purpose of this study was to investigate MCF-7 epithelial breast cancer cells’ viability and toxicity following a short-term in vitro exposure to a cocktail of PAHs and benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) separately in the presence and absence of varying concentrations of flavonoid galangin. It was predicted that presence of galangin will completely or partially block the damaging effects of PAHs. It was hypothesized that exposing the cells to 7 µM cocktail of PAHs or 10 µM B[a]P in the presence of 30 µM galangin would reduce the toxicity and increase the mitochondrial activity of the cells as compared to that in the absence of galangin. Experimentation was accomplished by exposing identical samples containing 75,000 MCF-7 cells each for 24 h to exposure medium containing 10 µM B[a]P alone, 7 µM cocktail of PAHs alone, various doses (5 µM, 30 µM, 100 µM) of galangin alone, mixture of 10 µM B[a]P and the various doses of galangin, and mixture of 7 µM cocktail of PAHs and the various doses of galangin. Viability of the sample cells were measured by MTT assays, whereas their toxicity were measured by LDH assays done on spent exposure media. The results are as follows, at significance level (α) = .05, 7 μM cocktail of PAHs in the presence of 100μM galangin was found to be highly toxic to the cells after 24 h of exposure. At α = .05, 7 μM cocktail of PAHs, 7 μM cocktail of PAHs concomitant with 5, 30 or 100 μM of galangin, 10 μM B[a]P concomitant with 100 µM of galangin, and 100 µM of galangin alone considerably reduced the viability of the cells.

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