Abstract:

Many species of the genus Astragalus have been long used in folk medicine because of their biological properties. The aim of this study was to investigate the antibacterial and cytotoxic activities of extracts from the leaves of wild Astragalus gombiformis Pomel. Antibacterial activity was assayed against several common human pathogenic bacterial strains using the paper disk-agar diffusion method. Cytotoxicity was measured against human lung carcinoma cells using the colorimetric MTT assay. The strongest cytotoxic activity against the human A549 lung epithelial carcinoma cell line was detected for dichloromethane extracts at IC50 = 85 ± 21.7 µg/mL. The best incubation time for this extract was 48 h. Most of the tested extracts were active against the tested bacterial strains. The methanol extract was found to be the most active against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Salmonella typhimurium. This study is the first report on the biological activity of leaf extracts of Astragalus gombiformis with respect to antibacterial activity as well as cytotoxicity.

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