Phytochemical and biological screening of methanol extract of maesa montana (Myrsinaceae) leave

Abstract

This research was aimed to evaluate the potential biological properties of the plant Maesa Montana for the first time. The plant belongs to the family Myrsinaceae. Maesa Montana was found to be locally used in arthritis. The methanolic extract of the leaves of the plant was partitioned with petroleum ether, carbon tetrachloride, dichloromethane and the fractionates were subjected to preliminary phytochemical screening. The phytochemical analysis showed that Maesa montana contains a mixture of phytochemicals such as alkaloids, glycosides, phenols, tannins, flavonoids, steroids and saponins. The crude methanolic extract of leaves of Maesa montana was used to evaluate the antioxidant, cytotoxic and thrombolytic activities. Antioxidant property of the extract was determined by DPPH test and the free radical scavenging activity of the crude methanolic extract was found with IC50 value of 62.27 μg/ml. The total phenolic content of the extract was found 295.395 (mg of GAE/gm of extract) suggesting a good source of natural antioxidant. The brine shrimp lethality bioassay was performed to determine the cytotoxicity of the extract. The assay showed LC50 value of 9.449 μg/ml which is comparable to the positive control (LC50 0.517 μg/ml.). In the thrombolytic study, the plant showed 19.911 % clot lysis which is also comparable to the standard clopidogrel which showed 40.436 % clot lysis. Thus our study demonstrated that the methanolic extract of leaves of Maesa montana possesses antioxidant, cytotoxic and thrombolytic activities.