Cytotoxic Activities of Different Solvent Extracts of Tirmania nivea and Terfezia claveryi against HepG2 and L929 Cells

Abstract

Desert truffles constitute an unexplored source for naturally occurring bioactive compounds. In the current work, different solvents have been used to extract bioactive components from <em>T. nivea </em>and <em>T. claveryi</em>. All tested extracts showed cytotoxic activities against HepG2 and L929 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Hexane extracts of <em>T. nivea </em>and <em>T. claveryi </em>gave highest toxicities of 91.23±0.03 and 92.7±0.01%, respectively, at 1 mg/mL, while the ethyl acetate extract resulted in toxicity of 94.5±0.02at 1 mg/mL in case of <em>T. claveryi</em>, which is higher by about 6% than that obtained for <em>T. nivea</em>. Furthermore, morphological examination showed that cells are gradually affected by increasing extract concentration.