SCREENING BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES OF ORTHOSIPHON ARISTATUS: SOME OBSERVATIONS.

The use of traditional medicine is expanding to newer horizons and plants still remain as the novel source of structurally important compounds that lead to the development of innovative drugs. It is anticipated that plants can provide potential bioactive compounds for the development of new ?leads? to combat various diseases. The systematically performed in vitro assays revealed that the tested plant extract may find in therapy as agent with high pharmaceutical value. In this juncture, the present study was undertaken to analyze the antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer potentiality of the medicinal herb Orthosiphon aristatus Benth. The results reveal marginal antibacterial, anti inflammatory and anti cancer activity than the respective standards. Considering anticancer activity, the extract showed high IC50 values for all the cell lines tested. The data on anti-inflammatory activity indicate an inhibition percentage of 19.38, when treated with 10 μg/ml of extract while indomethacin produced 54.4% inhibition. For antibacterial activity, inhibitory values at higher concentrations were quite good. In general, more activity was obtained when using more concentrated decoctions of the plant extract studied. The best results (60.5% inhibition) were obtained with antioxidant activity. This study provides evidence that the plant extract have antioxidant properties, as tested through the DPPH method. Therefore, the plant may have great relevance in the prevention and therapies of diseases in which oxidant or free radicals are implicated. The ability of the extracts to scavenge the free radical is an indication of the broad spectrum anti oxidant potential of O. aristatus, which make the plant a candidate for bio prospecting for antioxidant drugs. In addition, the plant is a good candidate for further phytochemical and chromatographic studies to isolate and fully characterize the compound related to this in vitro biological activity.