Screening the products of Streptomyces using cell culture technique to detect antitumor agents

• Main Authors: Saeed tajbakhsh, Sepehr Salehi, Nasrin Moazami
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bushehr University of Medical Sciences 2009-02-01
• Series: Iranian South Medical Journal
• Subjects: streptomyses; antitumor; cancer; cytotoxic
• Online Access: http://ismj.bpums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-3-137&slc_lang=en&sid=1

Background: Finding new antitumor compounds is essential for treating cancer. Streptomyces species are the major producers of antitumor agents. The objective of the present study was to screen the products of soil isolated Streptomyces species using cell culture technique to detect antitumor agents. Methods: Growth curve of Streptomyces was determined. In the production process, spore suspensions were inoculated to preculture medium and after 48 hours incubation, the bacteria were transfered to production medium. After 120 hours incubation of production medium, the process was stopped and fermentation broths were obtained. "Differential agar diffusion bioassay for cytotoxic substances", as a technique, was performed for the screening of antitumor compounds, so that the fermentation broths were examined on mouse T cell lymphoma using the mentioned technique. Cytotoxicity effect on T cell lymphoma was detected with appearance of blue zone on the cultures containing cancerous cells. Results: Two out of 125 products of Streptomyces showed positive result (blue zone). Conclusion: Two soil isolated Streptomyces products exhibited cytotoxic activity against tumor cell line. Therefore, these two products may have antitumor properties which warrant the need of further investigations.