Anticancer activity of plant leaves extract collected from a tribal region of India

The goal of this research was to explore the preliminary anticancer properties of five plants namely Calotropis procera, Moringa oleifera, Millettia pinnata, Basela alba and Euphorbia neriifolia available in Jharkhand which is used for the medicinal purpose by local tribes. In the present study, plant leaves from five species were collected, dried and extracted with solvents of increasing polarity, followed by assessment of their cytotoxicity in A549 non-small-cell lung cancer cells. In the antimicrobial assay, the methanol extract of the M. pinnata leaves exhibited comparatively higher zone of inhibition of 0.7 ± 0.20 cm against a Salmonella typhi culture than the other extracts. M. pinnata leaves extract also displayed the maximum percentage inhibition in the DPPH, 83.97 ± 0.01 FRAP, 193.14 ± 3.01 mM assays. Furthermore, the cytotoxicity of the chloroform (37.45 ± 1.04) and ethyl acetate extracts (34.20 ± 0.81) of M. pinnata against A549 cells was found relatively higher with respect to another extract. In contrast, a study with the L132 normal epithelial lung cell line revealed less toxicity from the chloroform extract (0.33 ± 0.19) compared to the ethyl acetate extract (6.65 ± 0.59). Based on these findings, phytochemical investigation on chloroform and ethyl acetate extract of M. pinnata was performed using UPLC-ESI–MS/MS analysis revealing the presence of β-sitosterol, lanceolatin B, karanjin, and stigmasterol. Congruently, a complete phytochemical and cytotoxic investigation of the M. pinnata extract constituents might infer the potency of this extract/s as anticancer, antioxidant and antimicrobial agents.