Abstract
Dietary intake of phytochemicals having antioxidant activity is associated with a lower risk of mortality from many diseases. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the free radical scavenging, cytotoxic and hemolytic activities of leaves of Acacia nilotica by using various methods. The results of the present study revealed that ethanol extract was the most effective and IC50 value was found to be 53.6 μg mL−1 for Vero cell lines and 28.9 μg mL−1 for Hela cell lines in cytotoxicity assays. The zone of color retention was 14.2 mm in β-carotene bleaching assay, which was as significant as positive control, butylated hydroxy toluene. None of the tested extracts possessed any hemolytic activity against rat and human erythrocytes revealing their cytotoxic mechanism and non-toxicity. Thus, only the ethanol extract could be considered as a potential source of anticancer and antioxidant compounds. Further phytochemical studies will be performed for specification of the biologically active principles.
Highlights
Cancer is a leading cause of death in many developed and developing countries
The protection of the organism against oxidative stress lies on endogenous antioxidants and on exogenous compounds taken in food
We showed that the ethanol extract (EA) prepared from leaves of A. nilotica had potent antioxidant activity and was significant in comparison with all the positive controls used in our study such as quercetin, tocopherol, ascorbic acid and catechin in DPPH assay
Summary
Cancer is a leading cause of death in many developed and developing countries. the etiology of the cancer are many, free radicals play a major role for the pathophysiological processes. The free radicals are the byproducts of aerobic metabolism and are produced by endogenous sources such as mitochondrial leak, respiratory burst, enzyme reactions and auto-oxidant reactions and environmental sources such as cigarette smoke, pollutants, ultraviolet light, ionizing radiation and xenobiotics [2]. They play an important role in many of the physiological functions like defense, inflammation, signal transduction, cell-cell adhesion, cell proliferation transcription and apoptosis [3], their accumulation leads to pathophysiological conditions such as neuro degenerative disorders, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer [4,5,6]. The protection of the organism against oxidative stress lies on endogenous antioxidants and on exogenous compounds taken in food
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