Chemotherapy is a type of cancer treatment in which the lack of selective cytotoxicity often leads to intolerable side effects. Today, the use of medicinal plants is essential in treating cancer due to their fewer side effects. Lagenaria siceraria Standl is critical for cytotoxicity studies due to its polyphenolic, cucurbitacins, pectin, flavonoids, and saponin compounds. In this study, the cytotoxic effects of plant fruit extract were investigated on lung cancer cell lines. To this end, the hydroalcoholic extract of the plant fruit was initially prepared by the percolation method. Then, the effects of solutions containing samples with different concentrations (5000, 500, 1000, 100, 100, 250, 10, 1, 0.1μg.ml-1) were investigated by MTT assay on lung cancer cell line (A549). Cisplatin was considered as a positive control. Statistical calculations were carried out using Prism V.3 software to compare IC50, and the data were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-test. The results indicated that the IC50 level of cisplatin anti-cancer drug, as a common drug in the market, is significantly lower than Lagenaria siceraria extract. However, the extract of this plant revealed a significant growth inhibitory effect on lung cancer cells. The results also showed that Lagenaria siceraria extract is an effective cytotoxic compound on lung cancer cells. More extensive studies are needed to find effective plant extracts compounds to find and design new and effective cancer treatment drugs.

Keywords: Lagenaria siceraria, Cell line, Lung cancer, IC50, MTTassay.