BAX and cancer: In addition, the citral showed cytotoxic activity on other cancer types, such as the HepG2 cell line, human colorectal cancer cells HCT116 and HT29, where it induced mitochondrial-mediated apoptosis via increased intracellular ROS, induced phosphorylation of the p53 protein and the Bax expression while decreasing the expression of Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL, which promoted the cleavage of caspase-3 [43].