Rotula aquatica Lour is a small branched shrub that grows characteristically among rocks and trailing over gravel in stream beds. It belongs to the family Boraginaceae and widely distributed throughout India. It is commonly called as Pasanabheda. The present study was aimed to evaluate the total phenolics and in vitro antioxidant activity in root and leaf extracts of Rotula aquatica Lour. The dried roots and leaves were subjected to soxhlet extraction utilizing chloroform and methanol followed by preliminary qualitative phytochemical analysis. Total phenolic content was estimated by Folin-Ciocalteu method and in vitro antioxidant assays were performed using various radical scavenging activities viz. DPPH, superoxide anion, nitric oxide, hydroxyl and iron chelating activities at different concentrations. The results of the total phenolic content estimation was expressed in terms of equivalence with standard and the antioxidant potentiality of various scavenging and chelating activity were expressed in terms of IC50 values. The results showed that both root and leaves possess significant antioxidant activity even though the former was found to be superior than the latter in terms of parameters assessed. Further the methanol extracts were proved to be an ideal for the materials subjected to investigation.

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Cruciferous vegetables have drawn a great deal of attention in cancer research because of their potential protective properties. In the present study, four vegetables viz. cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi and radish were procured and processed for cold extraction procedure using 70% ethanol. The extracts were subjected to the qualitative phytochemical analysis, quantitative estimation of glucosinolates content and in vitro antiproliferative activity by MTT assay on MCF7, DL and NIH-3T3 cell lines. The results of qualitative phytochemical analysis showed the presence of several bioactive compounds viz. polyphenols, flavonoids, terpenoids, steroids, glycosides and alkaloids. Quantitative estimation of glucosinolates in terms of potassium thiocyanate equivalence/5mg of extract revealed that the cabbage has highest content of glucosinolate (122.6 µg) followed by cauliflower (109 µg), kohlrabi (101.6 µg) and radish (60.2 µg). The four cruciferous vegetables registered notable cell proliferation inhibition at different concentrations (50, 100, 200, 400 and 800 µg/mL) in a dose dependent manner against three different cell lines. The results of antiproliferative activity was expressed in terms of IC 50. Among the four vegetables cabbage showed considerable cytotoxicity and cell proliferation inhibition with an IC 50 value of 192.5, 189.7, 589.7 µg/mL followed by cauliflower (378.7, 398.9, 597.9 µg/mL), kohlrabi (389.5, 396.9, 619.7 µg/ml) and radish (415.4, 423.3, 703.6 µg/ ml) in three different cell lines MCF7, DL and NIH-3T3, respectively.. The present study underlines the epidemiological surveys that cruciferous vegetables possess anticancer effects might be due to the presence of glucosinolates augmented with other phytochemicals.

Removal of Cu 2þ , Cd 2þ , Pb 2þ , and Zn 2þ from aqueous solutions by activated carbon prepared from stems and seed hulls of Cicer arietinum, an agricultural solid waste, has been studied. The influence of various parameters, such as pH, contact time, adsorbent dose, and initial concentration of metal ions on removal was evaluated. The activated carbon was characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and elemental analysis. Sorption isotherms were studied using Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. All experimental sorption data were fitted to the sorption models using nonlinear least-squares regression. The maximum adsorption capacity values for activated carbon prepared from Cicer arietinum waste for metal ions were 18 mg g À1 (Cu 2þ ), 18 mg g À1 (Cd 2þ ), 20 mg g À1 (Pb 2þ ), and 20 mg g À1 (Zn 2þ ), respectively. The Freundlich isotherm model fit was best, followed by the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Desorption studies were carried out with dilute hydrochloric acid for quantitative recovery of the metal ions and for regeneration of the adsorbent.