CYTOTOXIC POTENTIALS AND PHYTOCONSTITUENTS PROFILING OF BLEPHARIS EDULIS (FORSSK.) PERS. USING UHPLC/Q-TOF-MS-MS

Taha Abdel Maboud

doi:10.21608/ajps.2021.153559

Abstract

Recently, the demand for discovery of safe anticancer drugs from nature has been extensively increased to avoid cancer chemotherapy side effects. Blepharis edulis (Forssk.) pers (Acanthaceae) is a perennial herb growing in Egypt with many traditional and pharmacological activities. The in vitro assay as well as identification of phytoconstituents in plant samples by LC/MS/MS spectrometry has reserve time and efforts for rapid screening and identification of biologically active compounds in plants. Herein, we investigated the cytotoxic activity of different fractions of Blepharis edulis methanolic extract using Sulforhodamine B stain (SRB) against three cancer cell lines; Hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG-2), human colon carcinoma (HCT-116), and human breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7) cell lines. The results revealed that the n-butanol fraction showed the most potent cytotoxic activity against the three tested cancer cell lines with CC50 values 9.12 ± 0.92, 6.79 ± 0.65 and 4.19 ± 0.51 against MCF-7, HCT-116 and HepG2 cell lines, respectively. Moreover, the high resolution the ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC/Q-TOF-MS-MS) metabolomic analysis for the n-butanol fraction as the most active sample has been achieved for the first time. A total of 30 compound of different classes including flavonoids, aromatic aldehydes, aromatic acids and alkaloids, have been identified from Blepharis edulis.

Highlights

Cancer is a major public health problem all over the world and one of the major causes of death in developing countries, together with cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases (Ueda, Tezuka et al 2002)
In the present work we aimed to profile the phytoconstituents of B. edulis most active cytotoxic fraction by the high resolution ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC)/Q-TOF-MS-MS
In order to specify the most potent cytotoxic fraction of B. edulis, the total methanolic extract as well as different fractions were tested for its cytotoxic activity against MCF-7, HCT-116 and HepG2 cell lines using neutral red uptake assay

Summary

Introduction

Cancer is a major public health problem all over the world and one of the major causes of death in developing countries, together with cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases (Ueda, Tezuka et al 2002). There are many traditional uses for B. edulis as antiarthritic, antibacterial, antifungal, antioxidant, potent aphrodisiac and antispasmodic activities (Mundla and Sitaram 2013). B. edulis revealed many biological activities as antioxidant (Ashour 2012, Mahboubi, Haghi et al 2013), anti-inflammatory (kumar Duvey and Chowdhary 2016), aphrodisiac (Mathur and Sundaramoorthy 2009, Singh, Ali et al 2013), antispasmodic, bronchodilator, antiplatelet aggregation (Saqib, Janbaz et al 2012), antidiabetic, antihyperlipidemic (Kant, Dua et al 2018), antileishmanial (de Sousa, Lima et al.), antibacterial and anti-fungal activities (Keymanesh, Hamedi et al 2009). Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) combined with High-resolution mass techniques allows fast fingerprinting and identification of plant metabolomics including several flavonoids, coumarins, phenolic acids and terpenes in biological samples, medicinal plants and food (Echiburu-Chau, Pastén et al 2017, Simirgiotis, Quispe et al 2017). In the present work we aimed to profile the phytoconstituents of B. edulis most active cytotoxic fraction by the high resolution UHPLC/Q-TOF-MS-MS

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