Ehsan Ghodrati shatori - Yazd University of art and science
S. Kazem Sabbagh - Department of Biology, Yazd University
Narges Nikonahad - Department of Biology, Yazd university science, and technology

Breast cancer is one of the most important causes of mortality among women that threatens the health of many women with different ages worldwide. Common treatments of this disease such as chemotherapy have produced side effects by using chemical drugs, which is why scientists always seek alternative methods to treat or slow down the growth of this disease. The use of herbal medicines has been commonplace since ancient times, and there is now a new attitude towards the use of these natural substances based on the history of traditional medicine. In this research, the effect of Carla s fruit extract from Cucurbitaceae family on the survival of MCF-7 breast cancer cells and the expression of Caspase 3 gene expression by real-time gene expression (qRT-PCR) were investigated. For this purpose, the cells were treated with different concentrations of Carla fruit extract (25, 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, 12.5 ppm) for 24, 48 and 72 hours and kept under sterile conditions for different intervals. The results of the study demonstrated that with increasing concentration and time, the vitality of the cells had a significant decrease compared to the control samples. At 100 ppm concentration, 50% of the cells (IC50 were loosed. Also, the results of gene expression analysis indicated that caspase 3 expression in 24 hours significantly differs from the control group, but there wasno significant difference by other time intervals (48 and 72 hours) in comparison with 24 hours of treatment. According to the data obtained, it can be concluded that Carla can be used as a useful herbal medicine for cancer treatment.

Breast cancer, Karla, Gene expression, IC50