CYTOTOXICITY STUDY AND ISOLATION OF ANTICANCER COMPOUND FROM AQUEOUS AND ETHANOL EXTRACTS OF SOME MEDICINAL PLANTS
Date
2017-01
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
HAJEE MOHAMMAD DANESH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY, DINAJPUR.
Abstract
The essence of the present study was to focus on the cytotoxicity of the aqueous and ethanol
extracts of five medicinal plants viz. Margosa tree (Azadirachta indica), White Marudah
(Terminalia arjuna), Ink nut (Terminalia bellerica), Myrobalan (Terminalia chebula) and Basil
(Ocimum sanctum) and isolation of anticancer compound(s). The main objective of this study
was to investigate the cytotoxic properties of selected medicinal plants with a view to discover
potential candidates for the isolation of anticancer compounds and also for designing new
anticancer herbal formulations. Brine shrimp lethality bioassay method was established for the
present study and the cytotoxicity was reported in terms of lethality concentration (LD50). The
shrimps were hatched and active shrimps were collected and used for the assay, suitable number
of active shrimps were added to the diluted test solution and the surviving (larvae) shrimps were
counted after 2, 4, 8 and 12 hours and lethality concentration LD50 was assessed. The ethanolic
leaf extract of basil plant was super toxic with LD50 0.57 μg/ml, aqueous leaf extract of white
marudah and margosa tree were highly toxic with LD50 1.07µg/ml and 1.11µg/ml respectively
and aqueous leaf extract of myrobalan tree and ethanolic leaf extract of margosa tree were toxic
with LD50 1.72 µg/ml and 1.71 µg/ml, respectively. The rest of the plant extracts were weakly
toxic against brine shrimp nauplii. For isolation of anticancer compound, the ethanolic extract of
basil leaves was detected to check whether it contains any compound that can inactivate the test
animal. The thin layer chromatography (TLC) examination of ethanolic leaf extract of basil plant
showed four distinct compounds at hexane: ethyl acetate (9:1, 15:1; V/V). The crude product of
basil was purified by column chromatography. Four distinct compounds were isolated after
column chromatography. Further, the cytotoxic effect of isolated compounds from ethanolic
extract of basil leaves was studied. Among the four compounds isolated sample-1 was super
toxic with LD50 0.80 μg/ml whereas, sample-2 was toxic with LD50 1.97 μg/ml and others two
were weakly toxic against brine shrimp with LD50 2.26 μg/ml and 2.27 μg/ml, respectively. The
findings of this study provide strong evidence that among the five medicinal plants examined the
basil (Ocimum sanctum) is a potential candidate for the isolation of anticancer compounds and
also for designing new anticancer herbal formulations.
Description
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the modern world (Jemal et al., 2007). It is the
second cause of death after cardiovascular diseases. Cancer starts with the deformation of a
natural cell caused by genetic mutations in DNA or abnormal activation of cellular genes that
control the cell growth and cell mitosis. This abnormal cell reproduces in an abnormal way
by asexual reproduction, that is, it ignores signals related to regulation of cell’s growth
around it and obtains invasion characteristics and causes changes in surrounded tissues
Cancer is an important health problem in developing and developed countries. Every year, an
average 182 per 100000 persons suffer from cancer worldwide, and 102 die by cancer.
According to the World Health Organization, 14 million people suffer from cancer and 8
million die by cancer worldwide. Mortality caused by cancers is increasing throughout the
world, and it is predicted that more than 13.1 million deaths will occur due to cancer
worldwide by 2030. Nowadays, various methods are used for cancer treatment such as
chemotherapy, but in this method, because of non-selectivity of medicines, a high percentage
of healthy cells will be lost with cancer cells. Conventionally, surgical procedures,
chemotherapy and radiotherapy are the major treatments for cancer. However, these
procedures have the drawbacks which include traumatic side effects, expensive diagnosis and
treatment (Cho, 2010). Medicinal herbs have therefore received a significant interest in anticancer therapy as they do not have these drawbacks. With due attention to rapid progress in
the phytochemical study of plants, they are becoming popular because of their anticancer
effects. The most important problem in cancer treatment is destroying tumor cells in the
presence of natural cells, without damaging natural cells
Keywords
ANTICANCER COMPOUND, MEDICINAL PLANTS, Cancer