CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS FOR THEIR ANTI CARCINOGENIC ATTRIBUTES

Abstract

Cancer is terrible disease. It is second leading cause of mortality worldwide. Conventional cancer therapies burdened the disease crippled patient with toxic side effects and are also very expensive. Therefore, the demand to use alternative approaches in treatment of cancer is increasing. Plant derived compounds due to their unique structure and sophisticated mechanism of action play promising role in anticancer therapies. The main objective of current study was to evaluate anticancer potential of medicinal flora of Pakistan. The plants used in current study are frequently utilized in folk medicines for treatment of many ailments in Pakistan. In present research work these traditional medicinal plants were scientifically examined for their antioxidant, antitumor, antimicrobial, anticancer and anti-inflammatory potential. Furthermore, chemical composition of the plant extracts was evaluated by state of art chromatographic techniques such as UV/Vis spectrophotometer, HPLC and GC-MS, revealed the presence of phenolics, flavonoids and broad range of other bioactive components in them. Antioxidant activity was estimated by free radical scavenging activity estimated by DPPH (1,1- diphenyl 2-picrylhydrazyl) assay. The outcome of antimicrobial activity assay showed that E. coli was the resistant strain to most of tested plant extracts. Overall, among the fungal strains, A. niger was the sensitive one. Furthermore, we examined antitumor activity by potato disc assay. Chloroform extract of V. betnocifolia (IC50= 38.13 μg/mL) exhibited maximum antitumor activity. We determined anticancer activity of different plant extracts against human cancer cell lines (KBM, mylegeous leukemia; U266, multiple myeloma; SCC4, tongue squamous carcinoma and HCT116, colon carcinoma cells) by MTT assay. The extracts with maximum anticancer activity against human mylegeous leukemia (KBM5) cells were examined for inhibition of inflammatory transcription factor, nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB). Surprisingly all the plant extracts inhibited TNF-α induced NF-kB activation.