Abstract:

Background: Phytomedicine can be defined as the herbal medicine with therapeutic and healing properties. They are the drugs purified and standardized fractions with defined minimum of more than four phytochemical compounds. Objectives and Rationale: A single herbal medicinal plant may consist of thousands of phytoconstituents or secondary metabolites and the possibilities of making new drug development and discoveries become evident.The aim of the present study is to explore the phytochemical profile, invitro radical scavenging and invitro cytotoxicity effect of ethyl acetate extract of Nyctanthes arbor-tristis. Brief Methods: Thepreliminary phytochemical screening was performed by qualitative methods and total content of phytoconstituents such as polyphenol, alkaloids, tannins etc in plant extract were quantified by spectrophotometric method. Total content of flavonoid was determined by aluminium chloride colorimetric assay. The concentration of alkaloids was analysed by spectrophotometrically. The antioxidant property of the extracts was determined by DPPH free radical scavenging analysis. Cytotoxicity of the extracts of Nyctanthes arbor-tristis was evaluated by MTT assay using LLCMK2 monkey kidney epithelial cells and MCF-7. Results and Conclusion: The aim of the present study is to evaluate the presence of various phytochemicals i.e., alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, polyphenols, etc., antioxidant potential and cytotoxicity of medicinal plant Nyctanthes arbor-tristis. Our results indicate that the plant possess antioxidant activity and cytotoxic nature of the plant extract due to presence of phytoconstituents, and their concentrations such as the total content of alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins and polyphenol compounds. The study demonstrated that the phytochemicals in a Nyctanthes arbor-tristis may contribute significantly to the different activities of this plant in further studies.

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