Evaluation of cytotoxic and antimicrobial activities of Struchium sparganophora (Linn.) Ktze Asteraceae

Struchium sparganophora (Linn) Ktze, (Asteraceae) is a culinary herbs used as part of a traditional dish in Nigeria and a medicinal plants for the treatment of different ailments in Africa. Dried leaf, stem and root parts of this plant were extracted with n-hexane, chloroform and methanol respectively, concentrated under reduced pressure, freeze dried and evaluated for their antimicrobial and anti tumour activities. The antimicrobial test involved microdilution titre technique while cytotoxicity activities was evaluated using the 3,-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) (MTT) assay. The extracts exhibited a broad spectrum of activity against Gram- positive and Gram- negative organism of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 50 to 6.25 mg/ml but this activity is less than that of anti-microbial standard drug amoxicillin which had MIC of 0.78 to 6.25 mg/ml except against Klebsiella aerogenes on which the extracts had a similar activity to that amoxicillin of MIC 6.25 mg/ml. The extracts showed a significant anti- fungal activity (P< 0.05) of MIC 6.25 mg/ml in comparison with the anti- fungal standard drug Fluconazole (MIC) 50 mg/ml. The extracts also showed to be cytotoxic to all cancer cell lines at the dose of 0.75 mg/ml and significant growth inhibitory activity to all the cancer cell lines used for the test at the dose of 1 mg/ml. The hexane extracts exhibited increase in most cancer cell lines growth at the doses of 0.1 and 0.25 mg/ml while the chloroform and methanol extracts did not show uniform activity. These activities may portend a beneficial effect to human consumption as it may hinder the development and growth of cancerous cells at a high dose.