Efficacies of plant phenolic compounds on sodium butyrate induced anti-tumour activity

The ability of the differentiation inducing agent sodium butyrate (NaB) alone or combined with plant-derived phenolic compounds to produce growth inhibition in human erythroleukemic cells was investigated. As a single agent, curcumin produced a marked inhibition of proliferation indicated by its low concentration used. The effect of phenolics on the cell cycle could probably contribute to the augmented antiproliferative activity of NaB. The present data show that quercetin produced synergistic effect in terms of cell killing in association with NaB. Both curcumin and ferulic acid potentiated NaB-induced reduction of cell number. When NaB was added before exposure to graded doses of quercetin it did induce a greater inhibitory effect. The combination of NaB and quercetin seems less effective on S180 ascites tumour cells. As a single agent quercetin was found to be the most efficacious on S180 tumour model.