Investigation of biological activities of Grewiacolumnaris

Abstract

The crude methanol extract of leaves of Grewiacolumnaris as well as its hexane, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform and aqueous soluble partitionateswere subjected to screening for antioxidant, cytotoxic, thrombolytic, membrane stabilizing and antimicrobial activities. In free radical scavenging assay, the hexane soluble fraction demonstrated the highest free radical scavenging activity (IC50= 110.93±0.52 µg/ml) which could be correlated to its phenolic content 13.24±0.21 mg of GAE/gm of extractives. The crude methanol extract showed the highest cytotoxic activi- ty with LC50 value 1.05±0.45 μg/ml in brine shrimp lethality bioassay. 64.62±0.63% clot lysis was demonstrated by the chloroform soluble fraction as compared to 66.77% clot lysis by standard streptokinase. At concentration 1.0 mg/ml, the hexane soluble fraction inhibited 68.55±0.82% and 41.60±0.17 % of haemolysis of RBCs induced by hypotonic solution and heat as compared to 71.90 % and 42.12 % by acetyl salicylic acid, respectively.