Phytochemical screening, Cytotoxic and Anthelmintic activities of the methanolic leaf extract of Terminalia catappa Linn
The present study is aimed to evaluate phytochemical screening, cytotoxic activity and anthelmintic activity of methanolic extract of Terminalia catapa leaves. Phytochemical properties of different extractives of plant materials were tested. Anthelmintic activity was assessed applying three different concentrations of the plant extract and recording the time of paralysis and death. While brine shrimp lethality test (BSLT) method was used to evaluate the cytotoxicity of the plant extract, where vincristine sulphate and DMSO was used as positive and negative control respectively. The phytochemical screening revealed the potent source of different phytochemical constituents on different extractives including alkaloid, glycosides, tannin, saponins, flavonoids, steroids and carbohydrate. In case of cytotoxicity measurement, the crude methanolic extract showed positive result (with LC50 1.4 ug/ml) compared to standard Vincristine sulphate (0.35 ug/ml) which indicated that the leaves of T. catappa possess mild cytotoxic principles. An elaborate study was carried out on the anthelmintic potential of methanolic extract of T. catappa where Albendazole as a reference standard. The lowest time for paralysis and death of worms, for test sample at highest oncentration (100mg/ml) and standard drug were found 34.09+ 0.44 and 50.04+ 0.09 min respectively, which gradually increased with the decrease of concentration. Results showed a dose dependent increase in the anthelmintic activity. Therefore, further studies are suggested to evaluate the possible mechanism of action and the active compounds responsible for the biological activities of the plant extract.