Background: Euphorbia graminea Jacq. (Euphorbiaceae) is a medicinal plant with limited information on its biological applications and reported scientific studies.
Method:in vitro This work was aimed at investigating the antiproliferative and antioxidant effects of leaf the extract and fractions of by employing the Sulforhodamine-B as well as the E.graminea DPPH-RSA (2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) assays respectively. The extract and fractions of E. graminea displayed growth inhibitory and cytotoxic effects in a concentration dependent manner on the cell lines.Results: At 250 µg/ mL, the extract recorded -3.1 and +75 % cytotoxic and growth inhibitory effects on MCF-7 and NCI-H460 cell lines. While the cytotoxic effect became more pronounced on MCF-7 cell lines as -2.19 and -9.6 % cytotoxicities were recorded by the chloroform fraction at 75 and 100 µg/ mL the ethyl acetate fraction recorded +58.72 and +89.33 % inhibitory effects at similar concentrations. The hexane and ethyl acetate fractions were inactive against NCI-H460 cell lines at all concentrations. The antioxidant activities further corroborated the antiproliferative activities as IC of 58.88 µg/mL was recorded by the chloroform fraction against 46.77 µg/mL by Quercetin. 50 Conclusion: This work has shown that the antiproliferative and antioxidant activities of E.graminea resides more in the chloroform phase and could be due to the active metabolites it contained. In continuation of this work, the Isolation and characterization of some of these metabolites will thus be carried out.