Separation and fractionation of Aquilaria Malaccensis oil using supercritical fluid extraction and the cytotoxic properties of the extracted oil

Most cancer chemotherapy procedure employs cytotoxic drugs that target tumor cell. Some natural product contains cytotoxic compound but in low concentration. However, fractionation method can significantly increase the concentration of the cytotoxic compound present, resulting in more effectiveness, which can easily achieve using Supercritical extraction. Therefore, this study aims to extract and fraction Aquilaria Malaccensis oil using supercritical fluid extraction, and investigate the cytotoxic properties of the extracted and fractioned oil. Aquilaria Malaccensis oil was extracted using supercritical extractor at temperature of 40-50 degrees C, pressure of 20.7, 27.6 and 34.5 MPa and extraction dynamic time 30 min. The extract with the highest extraction yield was then fractionated using the best obtained operating condition to extract the most active fraction. Both samples and fractions were tested for anticancer activity by employing MTT assay on human colon (HCT116) cancer cell line. The result of this study shows that the highest amount of extracted oil was obtained at 50 degrees C, applied pressure of 34.5 MPa within 30 min extraction time, using CO2 flow rate of 1 ml/min. The most cytotoxic fraction was obtained at the first ten minutes at operating temperature of 50 degrees C, pressure 34.5 MPa. The cytotoxicity result of the tested cell showed a significant cell growth inhibition of 99% for using the whole sample and 94% for using the fraction and IC50 values against the tested cell was 4 mu g/ml. These finding reveals that the supercritical extraction oil of Aquilaria Malaccensis has strong anticancer activity towards human colon cancer cells and hence can be a good candidate for treating cancer. (c) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of 11th International Congress on Engineering and Food (ICEF 11) Executive Committee.