Antioxidant, antibacterial, cytotoxic, and apoptotic activity of stem bark extracts of Cephalotaxus griffithii Hook. f

Abstract

BackgroundCephalotaxus spp. are known to possess various therapeutic potentials. Cephalotaxus griffithii, however, has not been evaluated for its biological potential. The reason may be the remoteness and inaccessibility of the habitat where it is distributed. The main aim of this study was to: (1) evaluate multiple biological potentials of stem bark of C. griffithii, and (2) identify solvent extract of stem bark of C. griffithii to find the one with the highest specific biological activity.MethodsDried powder of stem bark of C. griffithii was exhaustively extracted serially by soaking in petroleum ether, acetone and methanol to fractionate the chemical constituents into individual fractions or extracts. The extracts were tested for total phenolic and flavonoid content, antioxidant (DPPH radical scavenging, superoxide radical scavenging, and reducing power models), antibacterial (disc diffusion assay on six bacterial strains), cytotoxic (MTT assay on HeLa cells), and apoptotic activity (fluorescence microscopy, DNA fragmentation assay, and flow cytometry on HeLa cells).ResultsAmong the three extracts of stem bark of C. griffithii, the acetone extract contained the highest amount of total phenolics and flavonoids and showed maximum antioxidant, antibacterial, cytotoxic (IC50 of 35.5 ± 0.6 μg/ml; P < 0.05), and apoptotic (46.3 ± 3.6% sub-G0/G1 population; P < 0.05) activity, followed by the methanol and petroleum ether extracts. However, there was no significant difference observed in IC50 values (DPPH scavenging assay) of the acetone and methanol extracts and the positive control (ascorbic acid). In contrast, superoxide radical scavenging assay-based antioxidant activity (IC50) of the acetone and methanol extracts was significantly lower than the positive control (P < 0.05). Correlation analysis suggested that phenolic and flavonoid content present in stem bark of C. griffithii extracts was responsible for the high antioxidant, cytotoxic, and apoptotic activity (P < 0.05).ConclusionsStem bark of C. griffithii has multiple biological effects. These results call for further chemical characterization of acetone extract of stem bark of C. griffithii for specific bioactivity.

Cytotoxic Activity of Stem Bark Extracts from Canarium odontophyllum Miq (Dabai) against Human Colorectal Carcinoma HCT 116 Cell Line

“…accumulate substantial amounts of flavonoids and tannins which could be well correlated with the activities measured against HCT 116. The significantly higher cytotoxic activity demonstrated by the acetone extract from C. odontophyllum compared to its methanol extract against HCT 116 cells was in accordance with [24] that reported acetone extract from the stem bark of Cephalotaxus griffithii contained the highest amount of total phenolics and flavonoids and showed a more effective cytotoxicity than the methanol extract towards HeLa cells. However, the low extraction yield of acetone extract which indicated that less amount of polar components including phenolic compounds, flavonoid and tannnin were dissolved, the significantly stronger cytotoxic effect of acetone extract than methanol extract could possibly be attributed to the presence of terpenoid, which generally tend to be less polar.…”

Assessment of cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of stem bark extracts from Canarium odontophyllum Miq. (dabai) against HCT 116 human colorectal cancer cell line

“…Based on the previous study [ 10 ], acetone extract from stem bark of C. odontophyllum was found to have phenolic compounds and other phytochemicals such as saponin, terpenoid and tannin. A study found that acetone extract from stem bark of Cephaltaxus griffithii Hook f. induced apoptosis towards HeLa cells [ 32 ]. In addition, the mode of cell death of HL-60 cells after treatment with ethyl acetate extract from stem bark of Cudrania tricuspidata was via apoptosis [ 33 ].…”

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“…Thus, the nanocomposites synthesized in the present study as the same or with more suitable modifications may offer the possibility of its use in passive targeting by exploring the EPR effect, or in photothermal therapy as were nontoxic to cells 20,21 . Also studies on the effect of Cephalotaxus griffithii extract on HeLa cell line, and cytotoxicity showed similar cell blebbing of the cells 6 . Similar studies on studies the fluorescent Au nanocluster with chitosan (CH) for the delivery of suicidal gene in the HeLa cells.…”

“…After incubation, cell lysate was mixed with 4 µL of 6X DNA loading dye and subjected to run at 2% agarose gel electrophoresis. The gel was stained with ethidium bromide (0.5 µg/ml) and visualized under gel documentation system 6 .…”

“…This could be due to nuclear damage because of the treatment. Moirangthem et al, (2012) studied the effect of Cephalotaxus griffithii extract on HeLa cell line and cytotoxicity also studied by DNA fragmentation assay 6 . The control cells showed no fragmentation, while treated cell DNA was found to be fragmented.…”