Activity Guided Isolation of Cytotoxic Compounds from Indian Medicinal Plants Using BSL Bioassay

Objective: In the present work, fruits of Piper longum, Semecarpus anacardium, and whole plant of Achyranthus aspera have been screened for their cytotoxic constituents based on their traditional and Ayurvedic uses.Materials & Methods: Brine shrimp lethality (BSL) bioassay was used as a prescreening method to select the secondary metabolites with cytotoxic effect. Petroleum ether, chloroform, alcohol and water extracts of three Indian medicinal plants were tested by using this method.Results: Petroleum ether and chloroform extracts of Piper longum fruits showed grater cytotoxicity with LC50 values of 0.104 and 5.719 g/ml, and various fractions of petroleum ether extract of Piper longum fruits showed the significant cytotoxicity.Conclusion: The activity guided isolation of the active principles from Piper longum fruits have given us with five biologically active, cytotoxic fractions one of them was identified as -sitosterol. This method of BSL bioassay can be successfully used as a cheaper, reliable and quicker tool for isolating the biologically active fractions especially antitumor (cytotoxic) agents from the natural sources.