PHYSICOCHEMICAL SCREENING; IDENTIFICATION OF ANTICANCER, ANTIBACTERIAL AND ANTIOXIDANT PRINCIPLES BY FRACTIONATION AND GC- MS PROFILING OF FRUITS OF GUAIACUM OFFICINALE L.

Abstract

The present work is an attempt to find out biological potential of various extracts and ethanol fractions of Guaiacum officinale L. Sequential extraction was performed with different solvents. One of the active extracts (ethanol) was fractionated by column chromatography and the other (n-hexane) was profiled by GC-MS. The antimicrobial potential was tested against pathogenic bacteria by a well diffusion process and only one strain (S. aureus) displayed a significant resistance against different samples. For the cytotoxic effect, MTT assay was used on normal (BHK) and cancerous (HepG2) cell lines. n-Hexane, chloroform and ethanol extracts showed IC50 at 3.38, 3.56 and 2.607 mg/ml respectively. Furthermore, two fractions (i.e. F=2 and 3) fractions showed significant IC50 at 74.9 and 130.8 μg/ml respectively compared to the standard (Cisplatin, IC50 =16 μg/ml). No toxic effect was experienced against the normal cell line, showing it is safe in cancer therapy. The DPPH analysis revealed a significant antioxidant potential of the plant like n-hexane, chloroform and ethanol represented 68.67%, 73.00% and 77.67% RSA respectively, whereas F=1 to F=7 along with ascorbic acid showed moderate to less antioxidant effect, i.e. 55.93%, 68.56%, 50.19%, 9.64%, 28.40%, 12.63%, 32.54%, and 81.53%, correspondingly. Based on the above findings, it is highly recommended for further purification, isolation and identification of biomolecules from fruits of G. officinale as a possible extension of the present project.