Background: Cancer is one of the major public health problem worldwide and the second leading cause of death in developed countries such as the United States. Cervical cancer is a type of cancer that originates in the cell lining of the cervix. In Indonesia, the cervical cancer incidence rate was about 10.3% of total cancer cases and was responsible for 92,200 deaths in 2014. Due to the high mortality rate, researchers are still looking for new drugs by utilizing various sources such as human antibody, natural resources, utilizing viral vector, etc. Typhonium flagelliforme or “keladi tikus” is a herb that has been used traditionally to reduce the tumor mass in the patient. Materials and Methods: In this study, air dried and powdered rhizomes of Typhonium flagelliforme were macerated using ethanol and dichloromethane, separately. The solvent was evaporated with rotary evaporator and the concentrated extract was collected. Each extract was diluted into 30.625, 61.25, 125, 250, 500, 1000 ppm, which then were tested directly towards HeLa cells. Cell viability assay was done by MTS followed by cell migration assay. Results: Dichloromethanolic and ethanolic extracts were found to induce cytotoxic effect towards HeLa cell line with IC50 of 215.69 ppm and 838.95 ppm, respectively. Furthermore, based on the cell migration assay, it was observed that dichloromethanolic extract slowed down the HeLa cell attachment towards the surface compared to the ethanolic extract. Conclusion: Both type of extracts induced cytotoxic effect towards HeLa cells with the dichloromethanolic extract being more potent compared to ethanolic extract with the suggested mechanism of inducing cell death and inhibiting cell migration.

Key words: Typhonium flagelliforme, HeLa cells, Ethanolic extract, Dichloro methanolic extract, p53 expression, MTS assay, Cytotoxic assay