Abstract

METABOLITE PROFILING AND PHARMACOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF PHYLLANTHUS AMARUS STEM EXTRACT

Md. Hossain Sohrab, Fatima Binte Noor, Mst. Khodeza Khatun, Md. Shadiqul Islam, Sharif Md. Al-Reza*

Abstract

The plant Phyllanthus amarus contains a wide range of pharmacologically active compounds and is used for the treatment of several ailments in traditional folklore medicine in Bangladesh. The present study was done on P. amarus stem extract in order to investigate the metabolite profiling as well as evaluation of its pharmacological (antibacterial, antioxidant, cytotoxicity bioassay) profiles. The metabolite profiling was done by color test and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The antibacterial activities were determined by measuring the diameter of the zones of inhibition in millimeter. The cytotoxic potential of the test samples was determined by using brine shrimp lethality bioassay. The metabolite profiling techniques mentioned above revealed the presence of flavonoids, anthraquinones, terpenoids, steroids, coumarins, tannins, saponin, and reducing sugars in the crude extract of P. amarus stems. The stem extract displayed a remarkable antibacterial activity against all the tested bacteria. The extract also showed good scavenging activity having IC50 values 12.87 μg/ml. This study gives some concrete evidence to support the pharmacological use of P. amarus stems extract as antimicrobial, antitumor or pesticidal activity.

Keywords: Metabolite profiling, Phyllanthus amarus, antibacterial activity, antioxidant activity, cytotoxicity.