Cytotoxicity evaluation of sixteen Nigerian medicinal plant extracts using the human rhabdomyosarcoma cell line

Abstract

As part of our evaluation of plants from the Nigerian ethnobotany,sixteen extracts from fourteen medicinal plants were evaluated for toxicity and inhibition of tumour cell growth using human  rhabdomyosarcoma(RD) cell line. The plant samples were extracted by maceration in methanol at room temperature and were investigated for cytotoxicactivity. The ability of each extracts to induced cell death in tissue culture was evaluated by colorimetric method using MTT dye (3-[4, 5-dimethylthiazol–2-yl]-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) and cyclophosphamide was used as control. Cell death at 50% (CC₅₀) was evaluated for all the extracts. Fourteen of the assessed extracts were cytotoxic (CC₅₀< 20µg/mL) against RD cell, meanwhile extracts from four of the plants, namely; Parquetina nigresence (rb) Thoningia sanguinea (f) Khaya  senegalensis (l) Sida acuta (a) were not cytotoxic(CC₅₀> 20µg/mL). Methanol extracts of Quassia africana and Quassia amara stembark possessed the most significant cytotoxic activity (CC₅₀ = 0.09 and 0.08 µg/mL, respectively)against RD cancer cell andactivity significantly correlated with that of the control drug  cyclophosphamide which had a CC₅₀ of 1.80 µg/mL. Conclusively, the results of the present study indicatethat selected plants demonstrated awide range of cytotoxic activities. This will be of tremendous assistance in assesssing the safety of the medicinal plants and also give direction for future anticancer drug development.