Antifungal and antiproliferative protein from Cicer arietinum: a bioactive compound against emerging pathogens

The emergence of epidemic fungal pathogenic resistance to current antifungal drugs has increased the interest in developing alternative antibiotics from natural sources. Cicer arietinum is well known for its medicinal properties. The aim of this work was to isolate antimicrobial proteins from Cicer arietinum. An antifungal protein, C-25, was isolated from Cicer arietinum and purified by gel filtration. C-25 protein was tested using agar diffusion method against human pathogenic fungi of ATCC strains and against clinical isolates of Candida krusei, Candida tropicalis, and Candida parapsilosis, and MIC values determined were varied from 1.56 to 12.5 μg/mL. The SEM study demonstrated that C-25 induces the bleb-like surface changes, irregular cell surface, and cell wall disruption of the fungi at different time intervals. Cytotoxic activity was studied on oral cancer cells and normal cells. It also inhibits the growth of fungal strains which are resistant to fluconazole. It reduced the cell proliferation of human oral carcinoma cells at the concentration of 37.5 μg/mL (IC50) and no toxic effect was found on normal human peripheral blood mononuclear cells even at higher concentration of 600 μg/mL. It can be concluded that C-25 can be considered as an effective antimycotic as well as antiproliferative agent against human oral cancer cells.