Abstract

Medicinal plants serve as unlimited source for phytoconstituents that possess potent antioxidant and antiproliferative properties. Artemisia nilagirica L. is a potent medicinal plant widely found in India and has been used to treat human diseases for centuries. The present investigation was conducted to investigate the antioxidant and antiproliferative abilities of different crude extracts of A. nilagirica. A detailed study was performed on the antioxidant activity and antiproliferative activity of the methanol extract of A. nilagirica by in vitro chemical analysis. The chemical composition of extracts, studied in terms of phenolics, total flavonoids, triterpenoids, tannins and alkaloids were also determined. Results suggested that the amounts of different phytoconstituents in extracts vary based on polarity of solvents. The extracts possessed different antioxidant and radical-scavenging activities in different assays. Among the extracts, ethyl acetate and alcohol extracts showed the most potent radical-scavenging activities. Ethyl acetate and alcohol extracts showed cytotoxicity towards eight different human cancer cell lines in vitro with IC₅₀ values ranging between 30.43±0.86 and 982.46±14.40 μg/ml and they were less toxic to normal cell lines. The findings of this study provide evidence that A. nilagirica extracts can be used potentially as ready accessible and valuable bioactive source for isolation of antioxidant and anticancer agents.