Plants have been an important source for discovery of anticancer compounds. With the current decline in the number of new molecular entities from the pharmaceutical industry, novel anticancer agents are being sought from traditional medicines; therefore the anticancer efficacy of many plants that are used in traditional medicine is yet to be verified. The objective of the study was to evaluate the cytotoxic potential of ethanolic leaf gall extract of Terminalia chebula are evaluated against buffalo rat liver 3A, MCF-7 (Human mammary gland adenocarcinoma) and A-549 (Human lung cancer) cell lines. The cytotoxic effect of the ethanolic extract was evaluated by MTT assay. The extract was potent and effective in inducing cytotoxic effects in all the cell lines with an IC50 value of 305.18 ± 1.7 μg/mL, 643.13 ± 4.2 μg/mL, and 208.16 ± 3.7 μ/mL, respectively. The extract was more effective against A549 cell lines when compared to others. The presences of phenolics, triterpenoids, and flavonoids were identified in the extract. The extract showed total phenolic and flavonoid content of 478 ± 2.2 mg of gallic acid equivalent/g d.w and 538 ± 1.4 mg of quercetinequivalent/g d.w, respectively. This higher content of total phenolics and flavonoids found in the ethanolic extract was directly associated to higher cytotoxicity activity.Conclusion:The ethanolic leaf gall extract of T. chebula showed effective cytotoxic activities; which might be attributed to the phenolics/flavonoids present in higher concentration. Future work will be interesting to know the chemical composition of the extract and also better understand the mechanism of action of the constituents present in the extract to develop it as drug for therapeutic application.SUMMARY The present investigation establishes the anticancer activities of T. chebula leaf gall extracts on BRL3A, MCF-7, and A-549 cells. Presumably, these activities could be attributed in part to the phenolics/flavanoids features of the extract that has been demonstrated to act as cytotoxic agents. The experimental evidence obtained in the laboratory model could provide a rationale for the traditional use of plant as a source of easily available effective anticancer agents to the people, particularly in developing countries.

No abstract

No abstract

The leaf galls of Terminalia chebula is used widely as Karkatasringi in south Indian markets. Karkatashringi is an important crude drug employed in various indigenous systems of medicine against several diseases and the drug has diverse medicinal properties. The present study was carried out to understand the antimicrobial activity of various extracts. The antibacterial activity of T. chebula (leaf gall) was evaluated against ten bacterial strains including Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria using the agar-well diffusion method. Among the two extracts tested, the ethanol extract presented the best results against all the bacteria while aqueous extract showed moderate inhibition of the microbial growth. Each extract is unique against different microorganisms; Staphylococcus aureus was more susceptible to both extract among the tested organisms, whereas Serratia marcescens and Proteus mirabilis were less susceptible for ethanol and aqueous extract respectively. The inhibitory effect of the extracts was compared with standard antibiotic Ciprofloxacin.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/icpj.v1i8.11254 International Current Pharmaceutical Journal 2012, 1(8): 217-220

No abstract