Author : Montasir Ahmed Elnour, Awatif. A.Elegamy, Waleed Sayed Koko, Asaad Khalid, Eltyeb Fadul

Many species of plants have been shown effective antioxidant activities. This study is carried out to investigate the antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of six Sudanese medicinal plants commonly used as anti-inflammatory. Azadiracta indica leaves, Ziziphus spina-christi leaves , Matricaria chmomilla flower, Ricinus communis leaves, Acacia arabica leaves and Trigonella foenum seads were extracted with methanol 80% and screened for their free radical scavenging properties using 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) and iron metal chelating, while propyl galate was used as standard antioxidant. MTT colorimetric assay was used against vero cell line for evaluation the cytotoxicity of all above plant extracts. All the above extracts showed strong anti-DPPH with IC50 values 0.49, 4.74, 9.91, 2.14, 17.19 and 4.24 μg/ml respectively, the inhibition percentage of propylgalate levels was found 88 % at concentrations 0.5 mM. The inhibition percentage of radical scavenging activity against iron metal chelating 38.44, 26.88, 8.28, 17.05, 15.23, 27.73 % for all of them at concentration 50 μg/ml respectively. None of the above mentioned extracts revealed cytotoxic activity against vero cell line. The results obtained support the ethnobotanical uses of the above plants as anti-inflammatory.

Key Words: Medicinal plants, DPPH, Metal chelating, Antioxidant, MTT

Article published in International Journal of  Advance Industrial  Engineering, Vol.1,No.1 (March- 2013)