Convert Agriculture Waste to Valuable Compounds for Cancer Prevention and Therapy

Abstract

Cancer remains the second cause of death around the world and brings a substantial socioeconomic burden to both developed and developing countries. Despite the expensive cancer treatment, management of food and nutrition has been implicated as one of the critical factors for cancer prevention. Therefore, this thesis was aimed to convert agriculture waste into valuable compounds and explore their potential in cancer prevention and therapy. Firstly, cow bone protein (CBP) and grape seed extract (GSE) were investigated in anticancer activity in vitro. The CBP was non-cytotoxic to PC3 cells, while GSE showed a significant growth-inhibitive effect on PC3 cells. The primary polyphenols in GSE are oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPC) suggesting the contribution of cytotoxic effect on PC3 cells via inducing apoptosis. Subsequently, nanotechnology was used to explore the potential of OPC in cancer therapy. A seed-mediated growth method was used to synthesize gold nanorods followed by surface functionalization of OPC. Its physical properties were analyzed by UV-Vis spectroscopy, TEM, XPS, and FTIR which confirmed the presence of OPC capping on the surface of gold nanorods. The OPC capping gold nanorods were studied for their anticancer activity and apoptotic-inducing ability on PC3 cells at the inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 49.89 μM. Thus, the oligomeric proanthocyanidins coated gold nanorods is a promising anticancer agent for prostate cancer therapy. Results in this thesis have explored the intracellular cytotoxicity of cow bone protein and grape seed extract, as well as the oligomeric proanthocyanidins-functionalized gold nanorods. The recovery and utilization of valuable compounds from cow bone and grape seed extract not only contribute to solve the agriculture waste issue but also deliver a sustainable way for the applications of bioactive food in cancer prevention and therapy.