PHYTOCHEMICAL INVESTIGATION, ANTIOXIDANT AND CYTOTOXIC ACTIVITY STUDIES OF ROOT BARK EXTRACTS OF ARTOCARPUS HETEROPHYLLUS LAM.

Plant drugs enjoy much acclaim and worldwide acceptability even in the midst of amazing advancements in modern medicine. Current research in drug discovery from medicinal plants involves an approach combining botanical, phytochemical, and pharmacological techniques. In the present study, we selected the root bark of the plant Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam. belonging to the family Moraceae, to establish its phytochemical constituents, antioxidant property, and cytotoxic activity. Phytochemical evaluation of the total ethanolic extract (TEE) obtained showed the presence of alkaloids, glycosides, phenolic, flavonoids, amino acid, terpenoids, etc. The TEE was fractionated using solvents in the increasing order of polarity, i.e., petroleum ether, chloroform, and ethyl acetate. The antioxidant studies were conducted by DPPH and ABTS methods on chloroform extract (CE) and ethyl acetate extract (EAE) of the root bark of A. heterophyllus Lam. The extract which showed the greatest antioxidant property (EAE) was selected for cytotoxic studies using the MTT method on HL60 (Human promyelocytic leukemia) cell lines. Both the antioxidant and cytotoxic activity studies showed promising results.