AN EVALUATION OF THE PHYTOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES AND ANTICANCER ACTIVITY OF SELECTED NATIVE MEDICINAL PLANTS

Abstract

In the present study, phytochemical constituents of medicinal plants were evaluated from their ethanolic extracts, such as Andrographis paniculata, Centella asiatica, Psidium guajava and Solanum trilobatum. The extracts were subjected to a qualitative phytochemical screening using a standard procedure. Our study has identified phytocompounds present in leaf extracts of Andrographis paniculata, Centella asiatica, Psidium guajava and Solanum trilobatum using IR and GC-MS spectroscopy. An anticancer activity was performed on each of these extracts using two human cancer cell lines, a colon cancer cell line (HCT116) and a cervical cancer cell line (HeLa). Despite the four medicinal plants extracts having comparable anticancer activity, the ethanolic extracts of Andrographis paniculata and Solanum trilobatum show higher anticancer activity than Centella asiatica and Psidium guajava. The Andrographis paniculata (IC50=27.54 μg/ml HeLa and 30.19 μg/ml HCT116) and Solanum trilobatum (IC50=32.36 μg/ml HeLa and 35.48 μg/ml HCT116) shows equipotent activity against respective cell line than Doxorubicin (IC50=20.89 μg/ml HeLa and 22.91 μg/ml HCT116).