Evaluation of anticancer activities of selected medicinal plants from ganga choti, lesser himalaya, bagh, Azad Kashmir

The current study investigates the effect of plant extracts on human muscle cancer cell lines. Our medicinal plants viz. Terminalia chebula, Berberis lycium, Justicia adhatoda, and Geranium wallichianum were collected, preserved, and processed for the analysis of their anticancer activity. The basic aim was to observe the mechanism of cell death on Rhabdomyosarcoma (RD) cell line as an experimental model. The cell death rate, cytotoxicity, and viability of RD cells were determined with the help of MTT method. Results revealed that at 48 hours, T. chebula exhibited maximum cytotoxicity having 21% cell viability followed by 48% viability by J. adhatoda, 61% by G. wallichianum and 69% by B. lycium. Photodynamic therapeutic (PDT) effect of Terminalia chebula extract showed 68, 58, 61, 53 and 48% viability followed by Berberis lycium 68, 63, 100, 76, and 75% viability. Justicia adhatoda exhibited 95, 94, 69, 69, and 74% viability whereas Geranium wallichianum had 75, 73, 61, 60, and 64% viability at 12.5, 25, 50, 100, and 200 ug/ml concentration, respectively. The results indicated that plant extracts have anticancer activity and T. chebula is the most toxic plant that exhibited maximum RD cell toxicity. The study suggests further isolation and characterization of bioactive compounds in T. chebula responsible for anti-cancer activity. (author)