Antioxidant and Anticancer Activities of Manilkara zapota and Lansium domesticum Leaves Coupled with Metabolomics analysis using Molecular Networking

Abstract

Several natural products are known to have anticancer activity. This study explores the potential use of different extracts of Lansium domesticum and Manilkara zapota leaves as an anticancer drug by testing its anti-oxidative and cytotoxic properties. Furthermore, metabolomics of these plant extracts was performed to characterize them. Leaves of M. zapota and L. domesticum were air-dried for three days and then sequentially extracted with hexane, ethyl acetate, and methanol. A portion of each leaf extract was subjected to clean-up procedure by solid-phase extraction using polyamide resins to remove tannins and liquid-liquid extraction using hexane to remove chlorophyll. The resulting leaf extracts were screened for antioxidant and anticancer activities. The DPPH assay for antioxidant activity showed that the crude methanol extract of M. zapota had the highest total antioxidant activity of 3.523 ± 0.382 mmol Trolox equivalents/g. The MTT assay for measuring anticancer activity against human lung adenocarcinoma cells gave the highest percent growth inhibition (70 ± 1 %) for the crude hexane extract of L. domesticum. A decrease in antioxidant and anticancer activities was observed for the extracts after the clean-up procedure. Phytochemical tests and LC-MS/MS metabolomics using GNPS suggest that the methanol extract of M. zapota contains flavonoids, steroids, sugars, anthraquinones, anthrones, coumarins, phenols, and tannins. In contrast, the hexane extract of L. domesticum contains flavonoids, steroids, sugars, anthraquinones, indoles, triterpenes, and sterols. The extracts of both M. zapota and L. domesticum serve as promising antioxidant and anticancer agents. Metabolite networking using mass spectrometry shows the phytochemical content of these extracts.