NTU Undergraduates' research April 2014 - Biosciences | Page 37

The investigation into the prooxidant and antioxidant activity
of Naringenin on H9c2 cell viability
Gerald Owusu-Moore* and Dr John Dickenson

ABSTRACT
Antioxidant activity of naringenin has been well described in several studies. However prooxidant activity by naringenin has
been demonstrated in in vitro models. Therefore the primary aim of this study was to determine whether naringenin is
able to induce a prooxidant response in undifferentiated and differentiated H9c2 cells. To observe a prooxidant response
H9c2 cells were exposed to naringenin at a range of concentrations from 1µM to 100µM for 24, 48 and 72h. To investigate
the antioxidant responses, where appropriate cells were exposed to Hydrogen peroxide for two hours in the presence of
pre-treated cells with naringenin for 24 and 48h. Cell viability was determined by the MTT viability assay where the amount
of MTT reduced is directly proportional to the amount of viable cells. The results from this study failed to demonstrate any
naringenin prooxidant activity at any of the concentrations in H9c2 cells as no significant response was observed. On the
other hand naringenin was able to demonstrate antioxidant activity as there was a difference in the response of pretreated Naringenin of 100µM and 30µM H9c2 than cells with no treatment. However no difference was observed between
the two concentrations. These results have confirmed the main conclusions observed in other studies in relation to active
antioxidant activity.