The Purification Of C-phycocyanin And Subunits From Spirulina Platensis And Anti-cancer Study In Vitro

Ophycocyanin (C-PC), the major light harvesting biliprotein from Spirulina platensis is of greater importance because of its various biological and pharmacological properties. It is composed of two subunits-α and β subunit, and mainly exist with (α β)₃ hexamer and (α β),hexamer in room temperature,, It is a water soluble, non-toxic fluorescent protein pigment with potent anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and even anti-cancer properties.In the present study, a high efficiency and relatively convenient purification system was devised with two-step HA chromatogram and obtain pure C-PC with OD620/OD280 of 4. 5. With CM-sepharose chromatogram, α and β subunit were purified successfully. The uv/vis spectrophotometer and spectrofluorimeter test indicate that the two subunits have complete absorption and fluorescence spectra.The effect of highly purified C-PC α and β subunit was tested on growth and multiplication of human lung adenocarcinoma cell line (SPC-Al). The results indicate that the β subunit of C-PC is the potentest anti-cancer fragment under the same concentration condition in vitro. Under those experimental conditions a dose and time dependent decrease in SPC-Al cell proliferation was observed. Further studies involving fluorescence microscope and Analysis of DNA fragmentation revealed that C-PC(≥40μ M) can induce SPC-Al cell line apoptosis in vitro with characteristic apoptotic features like cell shrinkage, nuclear condensation and fragmentation. C-phycocyanin, a natural product, could therefore be a possible chemotherapeutic agent through its apoptotic activity against tumor cells.