Antitumor, cytotoxic and antioxidant potential of Aster thomsonii extracts

Abstract

The present investigation deals with biological evaluation of Aster thomsonii. For this purpose, different biological assays of crude methanolic extract (CME) and its fractions that is n-Hexane fraction (NHF) and aqueous fraction (AQF) were carried out. The results of AQF showed maximum brine shrimp cytotoxic activity with ED50 values of 154.69 µg/ml, while the NHF showed significant potato disc antitumor activity with IC50values of 9.55 µg/ml. Evaluation of both NHF and AQF fractions for sulforhodamine B assay on human cell line HT144 showed IC50 values of 1.10 and 2.82 mg/ml, respectively. While the IC50 of CME and AQF fractions against human cell line H157 were 0.056 and 0.005 mg/ml, respectively. Antioxidant analysis of AQF determined the IC50 values of 31.98 µg/ml. DNA protection assay results of all plant extracts were also appreciating for further investigations but the extracts and their fractions did not show antibacterial activity.   Key words: Aster thomsonii, brine shrimp toxicity assay, antitumor assay, sulforhodamine-B assay, antioxidant assay, DNA protection assay.