In vitro Evaluation of Cytotoxic and Thrombolytic Activities of Oroxylum indicum (Linn.)

Abstract

Oroxylum indicum is a species of flowering plant belonging to the family Bignoniaceae and have many medicinal properties which prompted us to evaluate its possible thrombolytic and cytotoxic activities. A quick and rapid methodology was applied to find out the thrombolytic effect of the methanol extract of leaves of O. indicum. Streptokinase and water were employed as a positive and negative control, respectively. Thrombolytic effect was expressed as percentage of clot lysis. O. indicum, streptokinase and water demonstrated 23.69 ± 6.97%, 78.41 ± 0.366% and 5.19 ± 0.241% clot lysis, respectively. Cytotoxic property was evaluated by the brine shrimp lethality bioassay and the result was expressed as LC₅₀. In this study, DMSO was used as solvent and vincristine sulphate as positive control. The extract showed cytotoxicity against brine shrimp nauplii and the calculated LC₅₀ of O. indicum and vincristine sulphate were 251.2 ?g/ml and 5.2 ?g/ml, respectively. Due to the cytotoxic and thrombolytic activities, O. indicum may be regarded as a promising candidate for natural anticancer agent and should be subjected to purification processes for useful therapeutic drugs.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bpj.v17i1.22319

Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Journal 17(1): 70-74, 2014