International Journal of Pharmacology (IJP) is published by IMR Press from Volume 21 Issue 4 (2025). Previous articles were published by another publisher under the CC-BY licence, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement.
1 Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Minden, P.Penang-11800, Malaysia
2 Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Minden, P.Penang-11800, Malaysia
Abstract
Catharanthus roseus (Apocynaceae), in Malaysia known as Kemuning cina, well known for being rich in alkaloids was investigated for its cytotoxic activity by using MTT assay against Human Colorectal Carcinoma Cell Line (HCT 116). The preliminary cytotoxicity study demonstrated dose independent cytotoxic activity of the methanol extract of C. roseus when screened against HCT-116 colorectal carcinoma cell line. n-hexane, chloroform and methanol fractions also showed dose independent cytotoxic activity with chloroform fraction showing the highest activity. Water fraction showed a minor cytotoxic activity, vindoline also showed some cytotoxic activity at 200 μg mL-1. Catharanthine showed the most promising activity while dose dependent cytotoxic activity of its IC50 value was found to be at 60 μg mL-1. Simple and facile method has been developed for the isolation of compounds catharanthine and vindoline from this plant.
Keywords
- Catharanthus roseus
- catharanthine
- vindoline
- cytotoxicity
- alkaloids