In the present study, the effect of modulation of autophagy induced by
anthocyanin on cell death of Human T lymphoma cells (Jurkat) was studied.
Anthocyanin was abstracted from dry petals of Hibiscus sabdariffa, aquous solution
of anthocyanin was added to cells at different concentrations then cell viability was
determined by trypan blue exclusion method. Autophagy induced by anthocyanin was
inhibited by 5 mM NH4CL which halts lysosomal enzymes and accordingly
preventing autolysosomes formation. On the other hand, Autophagy was enhanced by
glucose starvation. In both experiments of autophagy inhibition and enhancement, cell
viability was studied to investigate the effect of autophagy modulation on cell viability.
The results of this work revealed that both inhibition and enhancement of autophagy induced
by anthocyanin lead to massive cell death. Immuno-detection of active caspase 3, one of the
major hallmark of apoptotic cell death revealed remarkable increase of active caspse3 upon
autophagy inhibition or enhancement. In conclusion, modulation of autophagy induced by
anthocyanin lead to increasing of apoptotic cell death.