The aim of the study was to evaluate the biological activities with toxic properties of the methanol, hexane, and chloroform extracts of Cystoseira compressa (Esper) Gerloff & Nizamuddin from the Coast of Urla in the Aegean Sea. The extracts of C. compressa were tested for their antimicrobial and antioxidant activities in this study. Cytotoxic and mutagenic potentials of the extracts were also evaluated using cell culture and mutagenicity assays. Hexane extract was found to have higher total flavonoid and phenolic contents than the other extracts and exerted higher antioxidant activity than other extracts. All extracts exhibited moderate antimicrobial activity against tested microorganisms (minimum inhibitory concentration ranges are 32-256 lg/mL). The results indicated that the extracts had no significant cytotoxic activity against human hepatocellular carcinoma Hep 3B cell line in all treated concentrations (5-50 lg/mL) and did not show mutagenicity in the Ames test. Lethality was not observed among mice treated with oral doses of the extracts. In conclusion, results of investigations indicate that brown alga C. compressa is a natural source of antioxidant. It has moderate antimicrobial activities with no toxicity.

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The objective of this study was to formulate imatinib (IM) loaded to water-in-oil (w/o) microemulsions as an alternative formulation for cancer therapy and to evaluate the cytotoxic effect of microemulsions Caco-2 and MCF-7. Moreover, permeability studies were also performed with Caco-2 cells. W/o microemulsion systems were developed by using pseudo-ternary phase diagram. According to cytotoxicity studies, all formulations did not exert a cytotoxic effect on Caco-2 cells. Furthermore, all formulations had a significant cytotoxic effect on MCF-7 cells and the cytotoxic effect of M3IM was significantly more than that of other microemulsions and IM solution (p < 0.05). The permeability studies of IM across Caco-2 cells showed that permeability value from apical to basolateral was higher than permeability value of other formulations. In conclusion, the microemulsion formulations as a drug carrier, especially M3IM formulation, may be used as an effective alternative breast cancer therapy for oral delivery of IM.

Phthalates are esters of phthalic acid and are mainly used as plasticizers in a wide variety of products and applications. There is no information on butyl cyclohexyl phthalate (BCP) toxicity. This study was performed to evaluate the histopathological effects and to determine oxidative stress inducing potential in liver by subacute exposure of BCP. The animals of the treatment groups were orally administered 100, 200, and 400 mg/kg/day BCP for 5 consecutive days per week during 28 days. As a result, no significant changes were observed in body weight gains, and absolute and relative liver weights of liver of BCP treated mice, when compared with control group. Although the degree of lipid peroxidation in the liver tissue of all BCP exposure groups were significantly higher than those of the control (p < 0.01), SOD and CAT activities in liver tissue of mice of 200 and 400 mg/kg exposure groups were significantly lower than those of the controls (p < 0.01). Moreover, BCP caused dose-dependent histological changes in the liver of mice such as congestions in vena centralis, an enlargement of the sinusoids, degeneration in hepatocytes, vacuole formations and presence of lipid droplets in hepatocytes, eosinophilic cytoplasm. While iNOS immunoreactivity was increased in all treatment groups, Type IV collagen and Connexin 43 immunoreactivities were decreased in all treatment groups compared with the control group. Significant decrease was observed in the number of TUNEL-positive liver cells of BCP treated mice. These results suggested that BCP exposure induces oxidative stress in liver and exposure of BCP during long time period could lead to hepatocarcinogenesis.