ANTIOXIDANT AND CYTOTOXIC ACTIVITIES OF SELECTED PLANT EXTRACTS AGAINST HUMAN NON-SMALL CELL LUNG ADENOCARCINOMA (A549), HUMAN COLON CARCINOMA CELLS (HCT116) AND CHINESE HAMSTER NORMAL OVARY CELLS (AA8)

Chemotherapy and radiation are the most prescribed methods of cancer treatments but these are highly toxic and also are carcinogenic thus alternative cures are being explored especially on the use of cytotoxic substances isolated from natural sources like plants known for their ethnomedicinal properties. Natural chemopreventive agents such as antioxidants isolated from plants are argued to be important in suppressing or reversing carcinogenesis and to prevent the development of invasive cancers thus research studies are now currently geared in the evaluation and determination of the cytotoxicity and antioxidant activity of plant extracts to serve as ideal cure. Since the acquisition and processing of highly cytotoxic and selective effects of plant-based compounds to cancer cells are still limited, this study was conducted on eight plant species known to have folkloric medicinal properties. The leaf ethanolic extracts were examined for their antioxidant properties and cytotoxicity against Human Non-Small Cell Lung adenocarcinoma (A549), Human Colon Carcinoma Cells (HCT116) and Chinese Hamster Normal Ovary Cells (AA8). Antioxidant properties were observed to be high in seven species. Only one species P. edule to have low antioxidant property but high toxicity to HCT116 cancer cell lines. Three other species C. ovatum, F. nota and P. odorata were both having high antioxidant properties and cytotoxicity to cancer cell lines HCT116 while four species S. contorta, T. copelandii, C. ramiflora and P. arborea have high antioxidant but relative very low toxicity to HCT116 cancer cell lines. While two species namely, C. ovatum and P. edule were cytotoxic to HCT116 cancer cell lines, only C. ovatum was found to be cytotoxic for both A549 cancer cell lines thus could be a good candidate as source of chemotherapeutic and chemopreventive compounds. The results that showed seven out of the eight species have high percentage of antioxidants can be argued that these species are candidate species as sources of chemopreventive compounds. Further studies are still needed to determine the compounds from these species that confer selective cytotoxicity to cancer cell lines.