Background: Traditional medicine mainly of herbal origin is widely used all around the world. Heavy metal contamination in such products is frequently reported. Accumulation of heavy metals in the human body leads to various health hazards. Thus, precise determination for such contaminants is required for safety assurance. Sample preparation is a significant step in spectroscopic analysis to achieve reliable and accurate results. Wet digestion methods are basically used for the dissolution of herbal product samples prior to elemental analysis.

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Purpose: To isolate and characterize the antithrombin compounds of Malaysian leeches' saliva collection (LSC) for use as anticoagulant proteins and peptides. Method: Reversed phase -high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) was used to isolate all proteins from LSC. All isolated proteins were tested for anticoagulant activity by applying two tests, thrombin time test and the inhibition of the amidolytic activity of thrombin on the chromogenic substrate (S-2238). The molecular weights of isolated active compounds were identified using tricine sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE

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This study aimed to investigate the cytotoxicity of Lagerstroemia speciosa (L.) leaves crude extract. It has been reported to show various bioactivities. The phytochemical screening of the extract has been carried qualitatively. The cytotoxic effect was determined through in vitro MTT assay of MCF-7 cell line, and brine shrimp lethality bioassay. The presence or absence of alkaloid, carbohydrate, glycoside, saponin, terpene, steroid, phenol, and flavonoid in the extract was determined through the qualitative tests. The extract showed cell viability of 100% (1.95–3.9 μL/mL), 96% (1.95 μL/mL), ≈ 95% (3.9–15.62 μL/mL) and 88% (250 μL/mL) while the mortality of brine shrimp nauplii was from 5% to 10% (7.8 – 125 μL/mL) respectively. For both assays, DMSO of 1 and 0.1% were used as vehicle controls, while the potassium dichromate as the positive control for the brine shrimp only. These results proved the leaves extract to be non-toxic.