IN VITRO CYTOTOXIC ACTIVITY OF ROOT METHANOL EXTRACT OF PSEUDARTHRIA VISCIDA (L.) WIGHT AND ARN. AGAINST HELA, HEP G2 AND L929 CELL LINES

Swapna Thacheril Sukumaran*, Sangeetha Girija and Nikhila Gopalakrishnan Sheela

ABSTRACT

Pseudarthria viscida (L.) Wight and Arn. (Leguminosae) commonly called “Moovila”, is a perennial diffuse under shrub with high medicinal value. It is an essential component of many famous Ayurvedic formulations like Dashamoola, Mahanarayana taila and Dhantara taila. The roots are astringent, thermogenic, digestive, anthelmintic, antiinflammatory, antifungal, antidiarrhoel, antioxidant, aphrodisiac, nervine, febrifuge, cardio and rejuvenating tonic. The main aim of the proposed work is the phytochemical screening and evaluation of in vitro cytotoxic activity of root methanol extract of Pseudarthria viscida against HeLa (cervical cancer cell line), Hep G2 (hepatic carcinoma cells) and L929 normal fibroblast cell lines. The preliminary phytochemical study of root methanol extract was done for the detection of phytoconstituents, using standard chemical tests. For in vitro cytotoxic analysis, different concentration of crude root extracts (10μg/ml, 50 μg/ml and 100 μg/ml) were incubated in the cell culture suspension. The cytotoxic effect was determined by MTT cell viability assay and the effects were expressed as IC50. Methotrexate was used as standard drug. The results indicated the presence of important secondary metabolites such as glycosides, flavonoids, alkaloids, terpenoids and tannins which could be the reason for cytotoxic activity of the plant. Crude methanol extract showed potential cytotoxic activity against different cancer cell lines with IC50 values of 40 μg/ml against HeLa cell line and 60 μg/ml against HeP G2 cell line. They all exhibited IC50 exceeding 100 μg/ml for L929 normal cell line. The present study thus confirmed that methanol root extract of Pseudarthria viscida (L.) possessed good cytotoxic activity.

Keywords: Pseudarthria viscida, Cytotoxic analysis, MTT cell viability assay, Methotrexate.