Fig. 1.

Cytotoxicity of Rauwolfia vomitoria extract (Rau) in normal cells and ovarian cancer cells. (A) Dose-response curves of normal and ovarian cancer cells. Ovarian cancer cells SHIN-3, OVCAR-5, and OVCAR-8 were exposed to serial concentrations of Rau for 48 hours, and cell viabilities were detected by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. A noncancerous epithelial cell, MCR-5, was subjected to the same treatment. IC₅₀ was defined as the concentration of drug that inhibited cell growth by 50% relative to the untreated control. (*P < 0.05 relative to any of the cancer cells). (B) Colony formation of SHIN-3 cells in soft agar with and without Rau treatment. Five thousand SHIN-3 cells per well in 6-well plates were either treated with 400 μg/mL Rau or untreated (Control). All values are expressed as mean ± SD of 3 independent experiments.