Abstract
Tabernaemontana ventricosa (Apocynaceae) a latex-bearing plant is used in traditional medicine for its therapeutic benefits in reducing fever and hypertension and wound healing. Due to limited information on the plant’s pharmacological activities, this study aimed to investigate the antioxidant potential of the leaf, stem, and latex extracts of T. ventricosa, using the Folin-Ciocalteu (total phenolics), aluminum chloride colorimetric (total flavonoids), 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays. The cytotoxic activity was evaluated in the human HEK293 (embryonic kidney), HeLa (cervical carcinoma), and MCF-7 (breast adenocarcinoma) cell lines using the MTT assay. The latex extracts possessed the highest total phenolic content (115.36 ± 2.89 mg GAE/g), followed by the stem hexane extracts (21.33 ± 0.42 mg GAE/g), the chloroform leaf (7.89 ± 0.87 mg GAE/g), and the chloroform stem (4.69 ± 0.21 mg GAE/g) extracts. The flavonoid content was substantially high ranging from 946.92 ± 6.29 mg QE/g in the stem hexane, 768.96 ± 5.43 mg QE/g in the latex, 693.24 ± 4.12 mg QE/g in the stem chloroform, and 662.20 ± 1.00 mg QE/g in the leaf hexane extracts. The DPPH assays showed the highest percentage of inhibition at 240 µg/mL, for the stem hexane (70.10%), stem methanol (65.24%), and stem chloroform (60.26%) extracts, with their respective IC50 values of 19.26 µg/mL (stem hexane), 6.19 µg/mL (stem methanol), and 22.56 µg/mL (stem chloroform). The FRAP assays displayed minimal inhibition ranging from 4.73% to 14.40%, except for the latex extracts which displayed moderate inhibition at 15 µg/mL (21.82%) and substantial inhibition at 240 µg/mL (98.48%). The HeLa and MCF-7 cell lines were the most sensitive to the extracts, with the hexane, chloroform, and methanol leaf and stem, and latex extracts significantly affecting the percentage cell survival. Overall, the various parts of T. ventricosa exhibited strong antioxidant activity correlating to its cytotoxicity. Further studies should focus on the isolation of specific antioxidant compounds that could be investigated for their anticancer potential.
Highlights
Cancer is a composite terminal disease whereby irregular cells rapidly divide and often attack several tissues or migrate into various other locations [1]
The results further revealed that the ferric ion reducing power of the extracts is consistent with the low quantity of phenolic compounds observed in Table 2, except for the latex extracts
The present study indicated that the leaf, stem, and latex extracts of T. ventricosa contain significant cytotoxic and antioxidant potentials
Summary
Cancer is a composite terminal disease whereby irregular cells rapidly divide and often attack several tissues or migrate into various other locations [1]. There are three significant and common causes of cancer, which include improper diet [2] genetic character [3], and ecological factors [4] such as ultraviolet (UV)-light, infectious agents, and pollution [4]. Horticulturae 2022, 8, 91 hasty incline in the critical contributors to this disease has directly increased cancer rates over the past decade [5,6,7]. According to the global cancer statistics (2018), approximately. Global cancer statistics have revealed that lung cancer is the foremost cause of cancer mortality (18.4%), closely followed by breast cancer (11.6%), stomach cancer (8.2%), liver cancer (8.2%), prostate cancer (7.1%), and colorectal cancer (6.1%) [10]. According to Made et al [11], nearly 38,000 (8%) of the total deaths in South Africa in 2014 were associated with cancer. Regardless of the widespread usage of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and immunotherapy, these treatments introduce significant consequences ranging from multidrug resistance (MDR), exhaustive side effects, and the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which induce detrimental effects to DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and cellular signaling pathways [12,13,14]
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