Abstract
Plants play an important role in anti-cancer drug discovery, therefore, the current study aimed to evaluate the biological activity of
(
) flowers.
The phytochemical and biological criteria of
were in vitro investigated as well as in mouse xenograft model.
extracts, specially CH
Cl
and MeOH extracts, exhibited the highest potent anti-tumor activity against Ehrlich ascites carcinoma (EAC) cells. The most active CH
Cl
extract was subjected to bioassay-guided fractionation leading to isolatation of the naturally occurring 5,6-dehydrokawain (DK) which was characterized by IR, MS,
H-NMR and
C-NMR.
extracts, specially MeOH and CH
Cl
extracts, exhibited significant inhibitory activity towards tumor volume (TV). Furthermore,
extracts declined the high level of malonaldehyde (MDA) as well as elevated the levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) in liver tissue homogenate. Moreover, DK showed anti-proliferative action on different human cancer cell lines. The recorded IC
values against breast carcinoma (MCF-7), liver carcinoma (Hep-G2) and larynx carcinoma cells (HEP-2) were 3.08, 6.8, and 8.7 µg/mL, respectively.
Taken together, these findings open the door for further investigations in order to explore the potential medicinal properties of