Unveiling the anticancer potential of the ethanolic extract from Trichoderma asperelloides

Ana Carolina R Oliveira; Flávia Santiago De Oliveira; Ana Flávia Bráz; Jamil S Oliveira; Jane Lima-Santos; Adriana A M Dias

doi:10.3389/fphar.2024.1398135

Unveiling the anticancer potential of the ethanolic extract from Trichoderma asperelloides

Front Pharmacol. 2024 May 1:15:1398135. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1398135. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Ana Carolina R Oliveira¹, Flávia Santiago De Oliveira¹, Ana Flávia Bráz¹, Jamil S Oliveira², Jane Lima-Santos³, Adriana A M Dias¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Inflammation and Cancer, Department of Genetics, Ecology and Evolution, Institute of Science Biological, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
² Physical Chemistry of Proteins and Enzymology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
³ Laboratory of Immunobiology, Department of Biological Sciences, Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Ilhéus, BA, Brazil.

Abstract

The discovery of new therapeutic alternatives for cancer treatment is essential for improving efficacy and specificity, overcoming resistance, and enabling a more personalized approach for each patient. We investigated the antitumor activity of the crude ethanolic extract of the fungus Trichoderma asperelloides (ExtTa) and its interaction with chemotherapeutic drugs. It was observed, by MTT cytotoxicity assay, that ExtTa significantly reduced cell viability in breast adenocarcinoma, glioblastoma, lung carcinoma, melanoma, colorectal carcinoma, and sarcomas cell lines. The highest efficacy and selectivity of ExtTa were found against glioblastoma T98G and colorectal HCT116 cell lines. ExtTa is approximately four times more cytotoxic to those tumor cells than to non-cancer cell lines. A synergistic effect between ExtTa and doxorubicin was found in the treatment of osteosarcoma Saos-2 cells, as well as with 5-fluorouracil in the treatment of HCT116 colorectal carcinoma cells using CompuSyn software. Our data unravel the presence of bioactive compounds with cytotoxic effects against cancer cells present in T. asperelloides ethanolic crude extract, with the potential for developing novel anticancer agents.

Keywords: Trichoderma; Trichoderma asperelloides; anticancer; antineoplastic action; cytotoxicity; drug discovery; synergism, cancer.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), grant 423045/2018-0; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), grants 88887.371929/2019-00 and 88887.508772/2020-00; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG).