Phenolic compounds, a group of plant metabolites, are of considerable interest because of their antioxidant pro-perties. Sinapic acid, a phenolic compound, is widely distributed in various fruits and vegetables. It is suggested to show some pharmacological effects such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anticancer. However, there is not eno-ugh data about the cytotoxicity of sinapic acid; the available data are limited. This study was aimed to assess the cytotoxic profiles of sinapic acid in a wide range of concentrations for 18 h exposure in two different cell lines, Chi-nese hamster lung fibroblasts (V79) and human cervical carcinoma (HeLa) cells using Neutral Red Uptake assay. The concentrations up to 500 μM and 2000 μM had no significant effect on V79 and HeLa cells, respectively, but the cell viabilities decreased below 50 % at concentrations higher than 1000 μM and 5000 μM for V79 and HeLa cells, res-pectively. IC50 values were found to be 1860 μM and 7248 μM in V79 and HeLa cells, respectively. This study has shown that sinapic acid have no cytotoxic effects in two different cell lines except at very high concentrations.
Keywords: Sinapic acid, Cytotoxicity, Phenolic compounds, Neutral red uptake assay, Chinese hamster lung fibroblasts cells, Human cervical carcinoma cells