Assessment of the antioxidant and inhibitory property of leaf extract of Ricinus communis Linn. on proliferation against different human cancer cells

This study aims to estimate the antioxidant potential of the castor bean plant (Ricinus communis Linn.) leaf's methanol and ethyl acetate extracts and to determine the anti-proliferative activity against three different human cancer cell lines MOLT-4, JURKAT and A549. The cytotoxicity of the extracts was determined against the normal bronchial epithelium cell line BEAS-2B. The phytoconstituents were extracted by using n-hexane followed by ethyl acetate and methanol. The result showed that methanol and ethyl acetate extract contained a significant amount of total phenol content i.e. 127.30 ± 3.479 mg GAE/g of tissue and 91.09 ± 4.992 mg GAE/g of tissue respectively. Both extracts showed total flavonoid content of 81.20 ± 5.346 and 59.96 ± 4.957 mg QE/g of tissue respectively. All the antioxidant assays like NO, SO and lipid peroxidation revealed moderate radical scavenging activity. MTT assay showed that methanolic extract exhibited an exquisite anti-proliferative activity against the MOLT-4 cell line with an IC50 value of 7.43 ± 0.871 μg/ml followed by JURKAT (20.10 ± 1.303μg/ml), A549 (55.12 ± 1.740μg/ml). No significant cytotoxicity was noticed in BEAS-2B at the 5 – 50 μg/ml concentration range. Methanolic extract showed robust cancer cell-specific anti-proliferative activity in the human leukemic cell line MOLT-4.