Enzyme Inhibitory and Mutagenicity Guided Investigation of Selected Medicinal Plants in Different Solvents

Abstract

Plants have developed the foundation of traditional systems of medicine that have been in existence for thousands of years due to the presence of vital bioactive constitutes. Aside from antioxidant, antimicrobial, hypoglycemic, anticarcinogenic and numerous activities of natural products, limited recognition regarding diverse therapeutic attributes of medicinal plants such as Momordica charantia, Syzygium cumini, Zingiber officinale and Parthenium hysterophorus exist. The current study was designed to explore the enzyme inhibitory (alpha glucosidase and acetylcholinesterase) and cytotoxicity capacities of solvent fractions of these indigenous plants. All the samples had inhibitory effects on alpha glucosidase, but methanolic fractionations of each plant exhibited greater inhibitory efficacy against enzyme action compared to other fractionations. Except for the methanolic extract of Parthenium hysterophorus (33.25 ± 0.43), all other studied plants, viz. Zingiber officinale (50.33 ± 0.99), S. cumini (73.91 ± 1.05) and Momordica charantia (72.30 ± 1.17) indicated more than 50% alpha glucosidase inhibitory potentials. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitions (percentage inhibition) by different fractions of P. hysterophorus, Z. officinale, S. cumini and M. charantia were in the range of 0.23 ± 0.14 to 11.40 ± 0.26, 13.04 ± 0.11 to 44.05 ± 0.76, 4.21 ± 0.15 to 71.55 ± 0.80 and 1.03 ± 0.09 to 50.12 ± 0.82 respectively. Among all studied plants, Momordica charantia, Syzygium cumini, and Zingiber officinale were non-mutagenic. Although slight variation in bioactivities was observed, all the botanical extracts are excellent sources of bioactive constituents with the potential to inhibit alpha glucosidase and acetylcholinesterase. Further research in this regard is warranted involving bioassay-guided assessment.