PHYTOCHEMICAL SCREENING AND ANTI-TUMOR ACTIVITIES OF THREE SELECTEDNIGERIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS

Abstract

This present study was to validate the anti-cancer properties of three selected medicinal herbal remedies used by the people of Lala District, Gombi LGA, using standard methods of phytochemical analysis, determination of antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of the three medicinal plants. The selected herbals’ extract revealed the presence of alkaloids, essential oils, phenols, glycosides, flavonoids, tanins, terpenoids, proteins and saponins. The medicinal plants demonstrated good antioxidant activity with IC₅₀ ranging from 0.50,0.47,0.54 and 0.45, 0.43,  & 0.49 which is lower than IC₅₀ of Ascorbic acid  (IC₅₀ 0.60), in both DPPH and H₂O₂ free radical scarving activity model used in for study. The brine shrimp toxicity results indicated that 50% of the plant extracts tested had LC₅₀ values lower than 1000 μg/mL; Mimosa pigra(LC_50.159.59μg/mL) and Cyanoglossum officinal (LC_50,123.82μg/mL), are mildly toxic and probably have no obvious danger of outright toxicity during acute exposure. It can be concluded that the three medicinal plants showed mild to no toxicity and thus, can be selected for further studies as they have demonstrated to have good phytochemical consitituents.  Antimicrobial, antioxidant activities and mild toxicity on brine shrimp have equally proven to be superb.