%0 Journal Article %T Acetone Extract of <i>Dioscorea alata</i> Inhibits Cell Proliferation in Cancer Cells %A Kenroy Wallace %A Helen Asemota %A Wesley Gray %J American Journal of Plant Sciences %P 300-314 %@ 2158-2750 %D 2021 %I Scientific Research Publishing %R 10.4236/ajps.2021.123019 %X Dioscorea spp., White Yam has been shown to exhibit a wide range of nutritional and medicinal properties. However, the compounds associated with its medicinal functions have not been fully examined. The purpose of this study was to generate a chemoinformatic profile of the bioactive compounds present in Dioscorea. alata (D. alata) and to characterize their putative anti-cancer properties using prostate (DU145) and lung (A549) cancer cells. Chemoinformatic profiling of D. alata resulted in five bioactive extracts: hexane (DaJa-1), ether (DaJa-2), acetone (DaJa-3), ethanol (DaJa-4) and water (DaJa-5) were generated. The analytes present in the five bioactive extracts were dissolved in 0.1% DMSO and their anti-cancer activity were determined. We observed that the acetone extract (DaJa3) was the only extract capable of inducing greater than 90% cell death of DU 145 cell at 100 ¦Ìg/mL. The order of growth inhibition of the extracts in DU-145 cell is DaJa-3 (IC50, 31.45 ¦Ìg/mL) > DaJa-4 (IC50 60 ¦Ìg/mL) > DaJa-1 (IC50 > 100 ¦Ìg/mL) ¡İ DaJa-2 (IC50 > 100 ¦Ìg/mL) ¡İ DaJa-5 (IC50 > 100 ¦Ìg/mL). MTT cell viability, dye exclusion, caspase activity and microscopic assessment of apoptotic cells demonstrated that DaJa-3 displayed cytotoxicity to both lung and prostate cancer cells. The A549 cells were more sensitive toward DaJa-3 with an IC₅₀ value of 22.28 ¦Ìg/mL (CI 28.42 to 36.63 ¦Ìg/mL), compared to that of DU145 cells with an IC₅₀