Olive Extract Effects on Colon Cancer Cells

For this study we used two colon cancer cell lines with different degrees of differentiation, Caco-2 as a model for the differentiated phenotype and HCT116 for the cell type with a low degree of differentiation [34 (link)]. The lines were obtained from American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) (Manassas, VA, USA). HCT116 and Caco-2, were cultured at 37 °C in DMEM medium containing 10% and 20% Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) respectively, 100 U/mL penicillin/streptomycin and 2 mM L-glutamine (EuroClone, Pero, MI, Italy). For the experiments, in cells grown at approximately 75% confluence, the cells were treated with dried extracts from 1 mL Olea europaea L. cvs. Leccino, Carboncella and Tortiglione olives, for 72 hours’ exposure time at different dilutions (1:100; 1:500; 1:1000; 1:10,000).