Investigation of cytotoxicity and in-vitro antioxidant activity of Asparagus racemosus root extract

Abstract

This attempt is made to address the phytoconstituents, free radical scavenging activity and brine shrimp lethality bioassay of five different extracts of Asparagus racemosus roots. Preliminary phytochemical examination of the crude extracts of Asparagus racemosus root disclosed the existence of different sort of chemical groups such as flavonoids, tannin, saponin, alkaloids, carbohydrate. The root displayed significant DPPH free radical scavenging activity with highest IC50 value showed by ethanol extract with a value of 78.15 µg/ml followed by methanol and petroleum ether having value of 106.44 µg/ml and 273.31 µg/ml respectively as opposed to that of the scavenging effects of ascorbic acid and BHT of 5.698 µg/ml and 8.816 µg/ml respectively. The highest reducing power was showed by ethanol extract followed by methanol and petroleum ether as opposed to that of the reducing potential of ascorbic acid and BHT. The fractions represented good cupric reducing capacity with increasing concentration taking ethanol extract in the top position. The ethanol extract yielded 108.78±2.77 mg/gm gallic acid equivalent phenolic content and methanol sub-fraction yielded 164.77±1.73 mg/gm quercetin equivalent flavonoid content that was highest among five extracts. Ethanol extract of Asparagus racemosus was found to possess the highest total antioxidant capacity (639.925±64.78) mg/gm followed by methanol (616.92±53.88) mg/gm and petroleum ether (469.17±52.95) mg/gm ascorbic acid equivalent respectively. In brine shrimp lethality bioassay, LC50 values for ethanol, methanol, petroleum ether, n-hexane and chloroform were found to be 0.674 µg/ml, 0.719 µg/ml, 0.984 µg/ml, 2.157µg/ml and 1.514 µg/ml respectively. N-hexane and chloroform extract showed least activity in all the measures. The results suggest that Asparagus racemosus is a valuable source of antioxidant and has significant cytotoxic activity hence could eliminate many diseases related to free radical.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/icpj.v1i9.11615 International Current Pharmaceutical Journal 2012, 1(9): 250-257

Two new alkaloids from Asparagus stipularis Forssk. roots

“…This genus is known for its medicinal uses as a tonic, antitussive, diuretic (Tomoda and Satoh, 1974;Konishi and Shoji, 1979) and for fever, cough, hemoptysis, diabetes, constipation and swollen and throat pain (Sekine et al, 1994). Pharmacological studies on these plants have demonstrated antifungal (Makoto et al, 1996), antiprotozoal (Oketch-Rabah et al, 1997), anticancer (Zhixiao et al, 2000;Park et al, 2011), antinociceptive, anti-inflammatory, antiarthritic (Paul and Okwuasaba, 2003;Mittale and Dixit, 2013), cytotoxic (Kim et al, 2005;Hossain et al, 2012) and antioxidant activities (Hossain et al, 2012). Phytochemical investigations revealed the isolation of cytotoxic steroidal saponins (Shao et al, 1997;Kim et al, 2005;Zhou et al, 2007) and the alkaloid asparagamine A (Sekine et al, 1994).…”

Asparagus racemosus extract increases the life span in Drosophila melanogaster

“…The potent antioxidant property of A. rasemosus has been reported in different solvent extracts and reported that methanolic extract of A. racemosus has moderate free radical scavenging action [19][20][21]. In Ayurveda it is believed that Shatavari improves defense mechanisms of the body and enhances longevity.…”

“…Dietary antioxidants play potential roles in the reduction of age-related diseases [30]. In the present study, phytochemical analysis of A. racemosus has been undertaken to correlate the antioxidants with longevity of D. melanogaster though it has been reported by others using different solvent extracts [19,31]. Plant extract contains high levels of phytochemical which promotes the health and prevents or delays age-related diseases [32,33].…”

Stability and clinical effectiveness of emulsion containing Asparagus racemosus root extract

“…Flavonoid compounds, including kaempferol 13 and isoflavone 14 , and an antioxidant compound, namely racemofuran, has also been found 15 . The extracts from A. racemosus root have anti-oxidation [16][17][18] , anti-tyrosinase 11,19 , anti-inflammation 20 and anti-ageing 10,21 properties. Moreover, pretreatment of dermal fibroblasts with an extract of A. racemosus roots (containing 40% saponins) inhibits the overexpression of MMP-1 and restores the expression of type-1 procollagen in UVA-irradiated fibroblasts 22 .…”