Modulation of gene expression induced by supercritical fluid rosemary extract in colon cancer cells

Supercritical rosemary extract (containing 16.90% carnosic acid, 1.90% carnosol and 13.59% volatile compounds) showed antitumor activity on colon cancer cells in vitro. We treated colon cancer cells with the extract and we employed whole genome microarray expression profiling to identify genes potentially involved in its antitumor mechanism of action. We analyzed gene expression of colon cancer SW620 cells after treating during 48h with supercritical rosemary extract at concentrations that cause 50% inhibition of cell viability (30 μg/mL), citostatic effect (60 μg/mL) and 50% cell death (100 μg/mL), in comparison to control cells (0 μg/mL). Two independent experiments were performed in triplicate. Each sample is the pool of the triplicates of one of the experiments (a or b) at the indicated concentration.