In vitro cytotoxic activity of menispermaceae plants against HeLa cell line

Menispermaceae, a family of flowering plants, is a medium-sized family of 70 genera totaling 420 extant species, mostly of climbing plants. It has various medicinal properties, which are used in the Ayurvedic system of medicine. Plants belonging to this family are rich in alkaloids, especially bisbenzylisoquinoline type. The hypothesis of this study is that the bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloids present in the selected plants may exhibit in vitro cytotoxic property.

The present study is aimed at estimating the total alkaloidal content of methanolic extract of Cocculus hirsutus and Cissampelos pareira and evaluating the in vitro cytotoxic activity of both the extracts on the HeLa cell line.

Methanolic extracts of both the plants in the concentrations of 500, 250, 125, 62.5, and 31.25 μg/ml were assessed for its cytotoxic activity by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay.

Total alkaloidal content was studied for both the plants using ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy method. Methanol extracts of both the plants were tested for its inhibitory effect on HeLa cell line. Cytotoxicity of the plant extracts was evaluated by MTT assay. Nonlinear regression graph was plotted between % cell inhibition and Log10 concentration, and IC50 was determined using GraphPad Prism software.

Preliminary phytochemical studies confirm the presence of alkaloids in both the plants. The total alkaloids present in C. hirsutus and C. pareira were found to be 0.252%w/w and 0.1656%w/w respectively. The IC50 values of C. hirsutus and C. pareria were found to be 111 μg/ml and 129.3 μg/ml respectively.

From this study, it is observed that C. hirsutus and C. pareira have in vitro cytotoxic activity against HeLa cell line.