Polyphenolic characterization and evaluation of multimode antioxidant, cytotoxic, biocompatibility and antimicrobial potential of selected ethno- medicinal plant extracts

Introduction: Scientific evidence about biological profile of natural products can support their traditional uses. The current work was aimed to assess phytochemical and biological profile of nine medicinal plants collected from Herbalists.Methods: Extracts prepared in different solvents were subjected to phytochemical, antioxidant, enzyme inhibitory, cytotoxic, and antimicrobial activities. Reverse phase-high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) analysis was performed for the quantification of polyphenols.Results: Results showed methanol extract (M) being potent as compared to others. Gentian lutea M showed maximum extract recovery (15.00 +/- 0.11 % w/w) and TFC (30.82 +/- 0.21 mu g QE/mg extract). Nigella sativa M displayed highest TPC (44.99 +/- 0.43 mu g GAE/mg extract) and TAC (334.72 +/- 0.35 mu g AAE/ mg extract). Results showed noteworthy quantities of vanillic acid, rutin, kaempferol, emodin in ethyl acetate (EA) and methanol (M) extracts of plants assessed by RP-HPLC. Gentisic acid was highest (11.75 mg/mg extract) in T. arjuna M extract. Similarly, maximum %FRSA (82.28 +/- 0.03 %) and TRP (160.40 +/- 0.38 mu g AAE/ mg extract) were depicted by Terminalia chebula and Chamomilla recutita, respectively. Moreover, Mentha longifolia and G. lutea M demonstrated noteworthy (p < 0.05) antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus (14 +/- 0. 7 mm) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (12 +/- 0.3 mm), respectively. Curcuma amada, C. recutita, Mur-raya koenigii and G. lutea M had significant a-glucosidase activity. Another good solvent for extrac-tion was ethyl acetate (EA), whose extracts were secondary to methanol in producing significant biological profile. For example, EA of N. sativa (TPC: 1.46 +/- 0.45 mg GAE/ mg extract), G. lutea (TRP: 160.33 +/- 0.52 lg AAE/mg extract: ZOI of 12 +/- 0.5 mm in K. pneumoniae) and Mormodica charantia (a-amylase inhibition: 39.5 +/- 0.10 %) showed significant bioactivities. All extracts dis-played mild antifungal protein kinase inhibition activities and were significantly (greater than80 %: p < 0.05) cytotoxic to brine shrimps with negligible hemolytic activity.Conclusion: Briefly, variable polarity solvent extracts of studied plants will be processed for iso-lation of antioxidant, cytotoxic, carbohydrate enzyme inhibitory and antibacterial compounds.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).