YUFA LIU3, YUMING LIU4, WEIYI FENG5, SEN LI1, GUOYOU CHEN1 and

YUFA LIU3, YUMING LIU4, WEIYI FENG5, SEN LI1, GUOYOU CHEN1 and TAIMING WEI1,College of Pharmacy, Harbin Medical University-Daqing, Daqing, Heilongjiang 163319; Biopharmaceutical Institute of the Heilongjiang Academy of Medical Sciences, Harbin, Heilongjiang 158000; 3 Department of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Material Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, Shandong 250000; 4College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300000; 5College of Medicine, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shanxi 710001, P.R. China Received February 8, 2013; Accepted July 26, 2013 DOI: 10.3892/ol.2013.Abstract. The present study aimed to investigate the composition and potential anticancer activities of essential oils obtained from two species, myrrh and frankincense, by hydrodistillation. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), 76 and 99 components were identified in the myrrh and frankincense essential oils, respectively, with the most abundant components, 2-Cyclohexen-1-one, 4-ethynyl-4-hydroxy-3,5,5-trimethyl- and n-Octylacetate, accounting for 12.01 and 34.66 , respectively. The effects of the two essential oils, independently and as a mixture, on five tumor cell lines, MCF-7, HS-1, HepG2, HeLa and A549, were investigated using the MTT assay. The results indicated that the MCF-7 and HS-1 cell lines showed increased sensitivity to the myrrh and frankincense essential oils compared with the remaining cell lines. In addition, the anticancer effects of myrrh were markedly increased compared with those of frankincense, however, no significant synergistic effects were identified. The flow cytometry results indicated that apoptosis may be a major contributor to the biological efficacy of MCF7 cells. Introduction Commiphora myrrha has a yellow oleo-gum resin that exists in its stem and is used worldwide for the production of myrrh, particularly in China and Egypt. The constituents of myrrh, include volatile oil (2-8 ), resin (23-40 ), gum (40-60 ) and bitter principles (10-25 ). Previous studies have shown thatmyrrh exhibits cytotoxic, analgesic, antiinflammatory, anticancer, antiparasitic and hypolipidemic activities (1-4). Frankincense is an aromatic resin obtained from trees of the genus Boswellia and has been hypothesized to exhibit a number of health supporting properties, including the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and antiinflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal and anticancer activities (5-8). Frankincense oil is prepared by the steam distillation of frankincense gum resin and is frequently used in aromatherapy practices.Pepinemab According to previous studies, the constituents of frankincense oil vary according to the climate, harvest conditions and geographical sources of the frankincense resin (9).Farletuzumab Notably, these two resinous drugs are always prescribed simultaneously in traditional Chinese medicine and are primarily administered for the treatment of blood stagnation and inflammation diseases, as well as for the relief of swelling and pain (10).PMID:35345980 A previous study identified that the combination of frankincense and myrrh oils exhibited synergistic effects on Cryptococcus neoformans and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (11). The present study investigated the chemical composition of hydrodistilled frankincense and myrrh oils from Ethiopia. In addition, the anticancer activities of the prepared essential oils against the MCF-7, HepG2, HeLa, HS-1 and A549 cell lines were investigated to determine whether sy.