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Crocin, safranal and picrocrocin from saffron (Crocus sativus L.) inhibit the growth of human cancer cells in vitro
Open accessAbstract
Extracts of saffron (Crocus sativus L.) have been reported to inhibit cell growth of human tumor cells. In order to study the cytotoxic effect of the characteristic compounds of saffron spice, we have isolated crocin, crocetin, picrocrocin and safranal. Doses inducing 50% cell growth inhibition (LD50) on HeLa cells were 2.3 mg/ml for an ethanolic extract of saffron dry stigmas, 3 mM for crocin, 0.8 mM for safranal and 3 mM for picrocrocin. Crocetin did not show cytotoxic effect. Cells treated with crocin exhibited wide cytoplasmic vacuole-like areas, reduced cytoplasm, cell shrinkage and pyknotic nuclei, suggesting apoptosis induction. Considering its water-solubility and high inhibitory growth effect, crocin is the more promising saffron compound to be assayed as a cancer therapeutic agent.
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Cited by
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Palozza, P. (2009) · Nutrition Reviews · doi:10.1111/j.1753-4887.1998.tb01762.x · Cited by 328
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Srivastava, R., Ahmed, H., Dixit, R., Dharamveer, & Saraf, S. (2010) · Pharmacognosy Reviews · doi:10.4103/0973-7847.70919 · Cited by 325
Effective Medicinal Plant in Cancer Treatment, Part 2: Review Study
Kooti, W., Servatyari, K., Behzadifar, M., Asadi-Samani, M., Sadeghi, F., Nouri, B., & Zare Marzouni, H. (2017) · Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine · doi:10.1177/2156587217696927 · Cited by 267
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Metadata
- Authors
- Escribano, J., Alonso, G.-L., Coca-Prados, M., & Fernández, J.-A.
- Venue
- Cancer Letters
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1996-02
- Volume
- 100
- Issue
- 1-2
- Pages
- 23-30
- ISSN
- 0304-3835 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2046650238
- Cited by
- 386
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 0.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Crocin, safranal and picrocrocin from saffron (Crocus sativus L.) inhibit the growth of human cancer cells in vitro. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/0304-3835(95)04067-6
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- Escribano, J., Alonso, G.-L., Coca-Prados, M., & Fernández, J.-A. (1996). Crocin, safranal and picrocrocin from saffron (Crocus sativus L.) inhibit the growth of human cancer cells in vitro. Cancer Letters. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3835(95)04067-6
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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