Original Articles
JS Ezekiel
Abstract
The search for the phytochemicals that elicit antimicrobial and other pharmacological properties such as antioxidants and cytotoxicity is on the increase. Many species of the genus celtis have been found to possess medicinal values. C. africana, C. australis and C. occidentalis have been reported to contain phytochemicals that show some important pharmacological activities such as antioxidant and cytotoxic properties. Celtis integrifolia is used traditionally in the management of epilepsy, mental disorder and cancer. Phytochemical screening of the solvent extracts of C. integrifolia using standard methods revealed the presence of flavonoids, saponins, cardiac glycosides, terpenoids and tannins in varying proportions. The ethyl acetate(EA), acetone(AC), ethanol(EtOH) and methanol (MeOH) extracts gave good antioxidant properties of 52%, 65%, 64% and 57% inhibition of 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) respectively. This is an indication that all of the solvent extracts except dichloromethane (DCM) contained antioxidant components. Similarly, when the EA and AC extracts were subjected to Brine shrimp lethality assay (BSLA), both fractions exhibited almost equal cytotoxicities. Both of the EA and AC extracts showed dose dependent ability to be cytotoxic. It killed about 50% of the Brine shrimp larvae, nauplii even at lowest concentration of 1 μg/ml. Therefore, the plant, C. integrifolia has proved to contain bioactive components that were antioxidant to DPPH as well as cytotoxic to Brine shrimp larvae, nauplii. This bioactivity shown by these solvent extracts from C. integrifolia is similar to research findings that led to the isolation of compounds having anticancer properties. Therefore, the traditional use of C. integrifolia to manage tumour and cancer could be due to the presence of the bioactive compounds detected in the stem bark of the plant.