Proliferative Effects of Beer and Hops Samples and its Anti-Cancer Characteristics

Undergraduate #39
Discipline: Chemistry and Chemical Sciences
Subcategory: Cancer Research
Session: 3
Room: Park Tower 8219

Navdeep Kaur - California State University, Bakersfield

The alpha and beta acids in hops (Humulus lulupus) contribute to the bitter taste in craft beer. Iso-alpha acids are the main contributors of the bitter taste, while both the alpha and beta acids, dissolve into solution during the boiling of the wort. Essential molecules in hops, such as terpene alpha-humulene have indicated the special characteristic of inhibiting growth of cancer cells. This research experiment focuses on the investigation of such components from hops on the anticancer activity of beer. Hollow Body and El Cerrito were used as the two beer samples and the solutions containing only the hops (Citra/El-Dorado & Saaz) were utilized to make the beer, in which the alcohol content was removed through the evaporation of ethanol. The solutions were freeze-dried and resuspended into cell culture media at original brew strength and various diluted concentrations. It was hypothesized that the cells would proliferate at a higher rate at high concentrations of the beer samples. HT-29 human colon cancer cells were incubated with various concentrations of the beer and hops treatments for 72 hours. HT-29 is a cancerous cell line established in 1964 from a 44-year-old Caucasian female diagnosed with colorectal adenocarcinoma (epithelial colon cancer) and serves as a benchmark for in-vitro studies. The MTT assay was performed, using the thiazolyl blue tetrazolium bromide to determine cell viability. At low concentrations, the proliferation of the cancer cell line was 206.4% for Hollow Body and El Cerrito indicated a proliferation of 265.0%. In contrast to these results, at original brew concentrations, cell proliferation decreased by 33.5% in Citra/El Dorado and 29.5% in Saaz. To investigate the proliferative effects of the beer treatments, the samples were analyzed for total carbohydrates (phenol-sulfuric acid method) and residual sugars (Lane-Eynon method). The beer samples had significantly high concentrations of total carbohydrates and residual sugar compared to the hops samples. Thus, it can be concluded that the proliferative effects of the beer treatments resulted from high levels of carbohydrates such as simple sugars. For future research on this experiment, alpha and beta acids from the hops will be isolated for treatment of cancer cells. This project is currently ongoing and trials are being repeated for further information.

Funder Acknowledgement(s): Research Council of the University (CSU, Bakersfield); CSUB LSAMP

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Sarah Forester, sforester@csub.edu

Role: I helped with treating the cancel cells at various points and also making the different beer and hops solutions.