Effect of citral and citral related compounds on viability of pancreatic and human B-lymphoma cell lines

Citral, 3,7-dimethyl-2,6-octadienal, is a key component of the essential oils extracted from several lemon-scented herbal plants. It has been demonstrated to be an effective antifungal agent and in recent years, to have antiproliferative effect in certain tumor cell lines: thus citral could be a potential anticancer drug. In this study, we investigated the effect of citral on the proliferation of pancreatic cell tumor lines (MIA PaCa-2 cells) and human B-lymphoma (DeFew cells). To analyze which part of the molecule is pivotal for the activity, we also studied the effect of several citral related compounds, in particular focusing on some chemical aspects of the terpenic scaffold. The in vitro studies revealed the significant cytotoxic activity of some of the tested compounds.