There are considerable efforts to identify naturally occurring substances as new drugs in cancer therapy. Many components of medicinal plants have been identified that possess substantial anticancerous properties. This prompted us to investigate the effect of Scrophularia striata (an Iranian species belonging to the Scrophulariace family) extract on the growth of astrocyte cancer cell line (1321). The 1321 cell line were seeded in 96-well culture plates in the presence and absence of various

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... centrations of either leaf and seed filtered and unfiltered extract of Scrophularia striata to determine their probable anticancer effects in comparison with etoposide (chemical anticancer reagent). filtered leaf extract of S. Striata showed strong anticancer effect on 1321cell line as compared to control group (cells not exposed to extracts), and even the group (adenocarcinoma gastric cell line) exposed to etoposide. Unlike the leaf extract, the seed extract activated cell proliferation in all experiments. Flow cytometry findings indicated that apoptosis is the mechanism by which the leaf extract inhibits cell proliferation. Our findings indicate that both leaves and seeds of S. Striata contain both anti cancer and cell growth enhancing agents.