Background: Moringa oleifera Lam. (Moringaceae) found to be very useful tree in tropical countries. In folklore and Ayurvedic all parts of the tree are used in different healing procedures for different diseases. The plant leaves are very good nutrient supplement for malnutrition and also used as an antibiotic. Methods: Phytochemical analysis of the leaf in solvents of varying polarity; viz., aqueous and methanol were also carried out. Results: The phytochemical screening indicated the presence of phenolics, flavonoids, tannins, glycosides etc. The antibacterial activity of Moringa oleifera leaf extracts against four microorganisms, viz. Escherichia coli, Shigella, Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus; the methanolic extract was active against E.coli, Shigella, Staphylococcus aureus whereas the aqueous extract exhibited an inhibitory effect on E. coli and Shigella only at different zone of inhibition levels of extracts. Well diffusion method was used to assess the antibacterial effect of the extracts on both Gram positive and Gram negative micro-organisms. Moreover, statically, the results were not significant at both 1% and 5% level of significances. It became obvious that, the higher reducing power of the aqueous extract could be due to the better solubility of the antioxidant components in water whereas the predominant antibacterial activity in organic solvent extracts as compared to aqueous extracts, indicated that the active components responsible for the bactericidal activity are more soluble in organic solvents. Conclusion: This study provided an evidence to support traditional medicinal uses of the plant.

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Today, cancer had been described as one of the deadliest diseases worldwide. It has been estimated that cancer causes about 9.9 million deaths in the year 2020. The conventional treatment for the disease involves single chemotherapy or a combination of mono-chemotherapy and or a combination of mono-chemotherapy and radiotherapy. However, there are negative sides to these approaches which have prompted the search for new therapeutic drugs. In view of this, scientific communities have started looking for innovative sources of anticancer compound of natural origin which include traditional plants. Nowadays, several studies have evaluated the anticancer properties of bioactive components (phytochemicals) derived from the plants both in vivo and in vitro. The phytochemicals are secondary metabolites or chemical compound produced during metabolic process in plants which are useful in the protection of plants. Most of these phytochemicals such as alkaloid, flavonoids, phenolic compounds, cyanidin, fisetin, genistein, gingerol kaempferol, quercetin, resveratrol possessed certain medicinal properties and found to have numerous applications in pharmaceutical industries for treatment of cancer. The paper was aimed to review some plants bioactive components (phytochemicals) used in cancer treatment.