Antiproliferative effects of <em>Matricaria chamomilla on Saccharomyces cerevisiae</em>

Introduction: The Matricaria chamomilla plant is one of the most important plants used for the therapeutic purposes. More than 120 chemical constituents have been identified in Matricaria chamomile plant including 28 terpenoids and 36 flavonoids. This plant has a variety of therapeutic applications including the treatment of diabetes, eczema, wounds and gastrointestinal diseases. The Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast is a non-pathogenic organism that is used as a model for pathogenic yeasts in order to identify compounds with antifungal properties and also to identify functional mechanism of these compounds. The aim of this study is to investigate the antifungal effect of Matricaria chamomilla hydroalcoholic extract on S. cerevisiae yeast. Methods: In this study Matricaria chamomilla extract was prepared by maceration method. In order to study the extract effect on growth and survival rate of the yeast cell, the spectrophotometry and methylene blue staining methods were used. Excel and SPSS 11 softwares were used to determine amounts and to infer the difference between control and treatment samples. Results: Results obtained from spectrophotometry and analyses of methylene blue staining showed that the Matricaria chamomilla extract at the concentration of 3000 &mu;g/ml caused a significant decrease in the yeast growth and reduced the cells survival rate up to 48 (p&lt; 0.05). Conclusion: Results of this research confirm that the hydroalcoholic extract of Matricaria chamomilla has antiproliferative effect on Saccharomyces cerevisiae.