Pharmacognostic Evaluation of mentha Piperata l for its Anticancer properties in Breast cancer models

Abstract

Plants are extremely valuable and used by people to cure many diseases for a long time. They had the least side effect on human beings. The present study was conducted on Pharmacognostic evaluation of M. piperita L. for its anticancer property. The study was conducted in four distinct phases. In phase I, phytochemical and free radical scavenging activity of various extracts of M. piperita was analysed followed by the estimation of enzymic and non-enzymic antioxidant levels. In phase II, lead compounds against breast cancer targets were identified from the secondary active constituents of M. piperita using ligand based drug designing. In phase III, In vitro anticancer potential of M. piperita was assessed using human breast cancer cell line, MCF-7. In the final phase, In vivo studies on DMBA induced breast cancer in female Sprague Dawley rats were carried out. newlineQualitative phytochemical analysis of different solvents (ethanol, chloroform, methanol, water) revealed the presence of six major phyto constituents namely alkaloids, carbohydrates, flavonoids, tannins, terpenoids and phenols. Among the four solvents, maximum intensity of phytochemicals was reported in methanol extract. Free radical scavenging activities of these extracts were determined in vitro against a variety of radicals namely DPPH, FRAP, H2O2 and reducing power assay. The highest scavenging efficacy of DPPH, FRAP and hydrogen peroxide were 90.33%, 81.52% and 91.38% at 60 and#956;g/ml. The antioxidant levels of the methanol extract was determined by estimating enzymic (Catalase, Peroxidase and Superoxide dismutase) and non enzymic (Ascorbic acid, and#945;-tocopherol and Polyphenols) antioxidants. Among the four enzymes, catalase showed highest level of 35.07±0.04 U/g tissue. Of the three non-enzymic antioxidants analyzed, the level of phenol was found to be maximum (273.52 ± 6.12 mg/g). newlineThe above phytochemicals recognized predominant in the extract were further subjected to molecular docking analysis against breast cancer proteins by using Auto dock