Antiproliferative and DNA-cleaving Activities and Phytochemical Screening of Balanites roxburghiana Linn. Fruit Extracts

The present investigation dealt with the antiproliferative, DNA-cleaving and preliminary phytochemical screening of n-hexane, dichloromethane and methanol extracts of Balanites roxburghiana Linn. The 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazole-2yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay was used to assess the antiproliferative activity against chronic myelogenous leukaemia, hepatocellular carcinoma, breast cancer, cervical cancer, colorectal adenocarcinoma and normal human kidney embryonic cell lines. Calf-thymus DNA-cleavage analysis was performed by agarose gel electrophoresis at various concentrations from 10 to 100 mu g and preliminary phytochemical screening has been performed using standard procedure. The antiproliferative assay results of the extracts revealed that the n-hexane and dichloromethane extracts were more active compared to the methanol extract. The methanol extract showed 21.7 % activity against breast cancer cell lines only. n-Hexane extract (V-1) exhibited DNA cleavage at all concentrations, which could be due to binding to DNA. The dichloromethane extract (V-2) exhibited DNA cleavage at all concentrations but a very prominent low molecular weight DNA band formation could be observed with increasing concentration of the extract, With the methanol extract (V-3), the DNA cleavage increased with concentration of the sample. A partial cleavage could be found at 10 mu g concentration under a UV transilluminator. The preliminary phytochemical screening revealed presence of flavonoids, steroids, tannins and saponins.