Terminalia chebula possesses anticancer potential

Abstract

Cancer is one of the major human diseases and causes large suffering / economic loss worldwide. These days various new strategies are being developed to treat human cancer, but the sure-shot, perfect cure is yet to be brought into the world of medicine. In the search of potential anticancer agents from natural products, the present investigation was carried out to evaluate the in vitro anticancer efficiency of The anticancer activity was determined by the cytotoxic potential of test material at 100 μg/ml via SRB assay. Cells were allowed to grow for 24 h on 96 – well flat bottom tissue culture plates and cells were further allowed to grow in the presence of test material for 48h. Cell growth was terminated by addition of 50% (w/v) tricarboxylic acid and cells were stained with SRB dye. Excess dye was removed by washing with 1% (v/v) acetic acid and bound dye was dissolved in Tris buffer. OD was taken at 540 nm and growth inhibition of 70% or above was considered active. The methanolic extract of fruit showed in vitro anticancer effect in the range of 75%-95% against four human cancer cell lines of colon, melanoma, prostrate and lung origin. The methanolic fruit extract of harad can be explored for lead molecule in the development of anticancer drug to provide a great service to cancer patients.