Background: Three decoctions, namely Emelia M (EMB), Mshikazi and Delosma H are used by traditional health practitioners in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa to treat and manage leukaemia and related conditionsObjectives: This study evaluated the in vitro antioxidant activity and phytochemical profile of the aqueous extracts of Emelia M (EMB), Mshikazi and Delosma H decoctions.Methods: Antioxidant activity of the extracts was evaluated using1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), glutathione (GSH), phosphomolybdate and thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) assays. Phytochemical screening was used to determinethe presence of compounds.Results: The DPPH radical scavenging activity was similar to ascorbic acid for EMB and Delosma H, but not for Mshikazi. At 24 h, EMB increased GSH in both THP-1 and Jurkat cells similar to Delosma H while Mshikazi demonstrated the lowest activity. At 48 h, EMB and Delosma H revealed increased GSH in THP-1 cells with no significant decrease in GSH levels in Jurkat cells. However, EMB showed the lowest lipid peroxidation activity compared to Delosma H and Mshikazi after 24 h treatment of both cells. Phenols, flavonoids, terpenoids, saponins were present in all extracts.Conclusion: Extracts of the three decoctions possess both antioxidant and prooxidant properties through high scavenging activity and increased in lipid peroxidation. Keywords: Antioxidants; herbal medicines; Emelia M; Mshikazi; Delosma H.

The search for new chemotherapeutics against leukemia is of great interest to researchers, owing to the limitation of the current drugs. In this research, new drug candidates against leukemia were probed through liquid chromatography-mass spectrometer (LC-MS) analysis of three traditional herbal concoctions, that provide the phytochemical profile of the samples. The identified compounds from the LC-MS were modeled for the analysis of their antileukemia activities, by using five different consensus methods, to combine the seven docking scores. The consensus methods are used to combine the docking scores to avoid losing promising drug candidates, due to a poor reproducibility of the docking scores across the different packages, due to differences in the scoring functions and training sets across the docking packages. The libraries of the potential drug candidates from the concoctions were constructed by searching the NIST database for molecules with a similar MS fragmentation. Venetoclax and gilteritinib, that target FLT3 and BCL-2 were ranked among the top hits, indicating the efficiency of this protocol without missing any potential drug. The results ranked rescinnamine and bisacodyl as new potential antileukemia agents that targets FLAT3, and BCL-2, including the mutated BCL-2 G101V receptor, that is known to be resistant to treatment with venetoclax.

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