This study was specifically designed to identify anticancer constituents in methanol-water extract of Polygonum bistorta L. and evaluate its cytotoxicity. For this purpose methanol-water (40:60 v/v) extract was subjected to conventional preparative high pressure liquid chromatography and 13 fractions were obtained. Constituents of obtained fractions were separated and identified with the help of GC-MS and LC-DAD-ESI-MS. Anticancer phenolic compounds such as gallic acid, protocatechuic acid, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, chlorogenic acid, vanillic acid, syringic acid, catechol, 4-methyl catechol, syringol and pyrogallol and fatty acids such as linoleic acid, myristic acid and palmitic acid were separated from different fractions. Fractions were evaluated for their cytotoxic activity on a rarely studied human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line (HCCLM3). 11 fractions showed good to strong cytotoxicity in a range of 200 µg/mL-800 µg/mL, whereas 2 fractions did not show any activity even at 800 µg/mL and no anticancer constituent was detected from them. 50 percent growth inhibition (GI 50 ) values for five most active fractions were calculated and results were in a range of 86.5 (±3) µg/mL-126.8 (±3) µg/mL. 3 out of these 5 most active fractions were found to contain phenolic content in them whereas all other fractions containing phenolic content did possess cytotoxic activity that may suggest the importance of phenolic constituents in anticancer activity. Moreover, the results also showed a definite dose dependent relationship between amount of fractions and cytotoxic activity.
Morinda morindoides is an important Liberian traditional medicine for the treatment of malaria, fever, worms etc. The plant was subjected to integrated approaches including phytochemical screening and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analyses. Phytochemical investigation of the powdered plant revealed the presence of phenolics, tannins, flavonoids, saponins, terpenes, steroidal compounds and volatile oil. Steam distillation followed by GC-MS resulted in the identification of 47 volatiles in its aerial parts: 28 were in common including various bioactive volatiles. Major constituents of leaves were phytol (43.63%), palmitic acid (8.55%) and geranyl linalool (6.95%) and stem were palmitic acid (14.95%), eicosane (9.67%) and phytol (9.31%), and hence, a significant difference in the percentage composition of aerial parts was observed. To study seasonal changes, similarity analysis was carried out by calculating correlation coefficient (r) and vector angle cosine (z) that were more than 0.91 for stem-to-stem and leaf-to-leaf batches indicating considerable consistency.
& This study was designed to develop a sensitive and reliable RP-HPLC method for the separation of aerial parts of Jologbo. Different extraction methods were used and compared to obtain the maximum number of constituents. Different chromatographic conditions were optimized to achieve optimum separation. A total of 98 peaks were obtained in the optimized separation method. Seasonal variation and difference in chemical composition among aerial parts of the plant were evaluated. Significant difference in the chemical composition was observed and statistical data processing supported the results. The correlation coefficient and vector cosine were calculated by chemometric analysis to evaluate peak retention times, peak areas, and peak heights between various batches (using selected peaks) which showed good repeatability. Gallic and protocatechuic acids were identified from the plant and their intra-day and inter-day repeatability values were calculated and convincing results were obtained.
Diarrhea is an epidemic that threatens the livelihood of children less than five years in developing countries. Control and mitigation pose a severe challenge in these countries. The subjective of the study is to assess the prevalence of and factors associated with diarrhea among families in Greater Monrovia. The study recruited 257 families from three communities and geographically and randomly assigned to the two groups (A & B). Socio-demographic survey and knowledge and behavior questionnaires on diarrhea prevalence were used to collect data. Reports from the study indicate that family in Group A (93%) and Group B (83.6%) have significant knowledge associating contaminated drinking water and contaminated food with diarrhea; X2 =11.2, p = 0.001. The family behavior shows that Group A (33%) and Group B (51%) do not treat their drinking water before consumption. The findings from this study recommend an education and awareness intervention on diarrheal and related illnesses to increase family knowledge and improvement of the behavior community public health improvement process.
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