Phytochemicals, antioxidant and antiproliferative properties of selected boesenbergia species (zingiberaceae) endemic to Borneo

• Main Author: Ling, Jing Jing
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: QK495 Angiosperms
• Online Access: https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/9581/7/24%20PAGES.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/9581/8/FULLTEXT.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/9581/
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sabah

Boesenbergia, also known as Kaempferia is one of the genus from the family of Zingiberaceae. The species of Zingiberaceae family have been reported to possess both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity, and thus might be effective as anticancer agents. Boesenbergia has many species that are locally used in the preparation of tonic, 'jamu' and traditional medicine. The aims of the present study started by discovering the ethnobotany of Boesenbergia species from recorded data by local people in Sabah; the selected plants were screened for the antioxidant, total phenolic and flavonoid content as well as cytotoxicity activities; further determination of the phytochemicals (especially flavonoid) were conducted using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) for the possible active compounds contributing to antioxidant and anticancer activities. In this study, methanol crude extracts were used. Four different parameters of antioxidant assessments were conducted: DPPH free radical scavenging activity, ABTS decolorization assay, FRAP assay and p-Carotene linoleate bleaching assay. For cytotoxicity activity determination, the plant extracts were screened by using MTT ([3-( 4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5 diphenyltetrazolium bromide] assay and further evaluated for cell cycle analysis by using flow cytometry. MCF-7 (hormone dependent breast cancer), MDA-MB-231 (non-hormone dependent breast cancer), CaOV3 (ovarian cancer), HeLa (cervical cancer) and HT-29 (colon cancer) were cultured for cytotoxicity activity. In this study, the leaves and rhizomes from B. rotunda (L.) Mansf. in Kulturpfl., B. pulchella (Ridley) Merrill, B. pulchella var attenuata R. M. Smith, B. sp 1 and B. armeniaca Cowley were analysed separately. B. rotunda was used as a positive control as it has anticancer activity towards certain cancer cell lines such as HT29 colon cancer cells and MCF-7 breasts cancer cells. In general, B. pulchella and 8. pulchella var attenuata displayed better antioxidant activity compared to the positive control. For MCF-7, B. rotunda (rhizome), B. pulchella var attenuata (rhizome) and B. armeniaca (rhizome) displayed positive cytotoxic effects with IC50 values of 51, 93±2.83 and 94.5±0.71 µg/ml, respectively. Naringin, hesperidin, quercetin and luteolin were detected as the major active compounds that might be contributed to antioxidant and anticancer activities. Thus, the Boesenbergia species collected from Sabah rainforest especially B. pulchella var attenuata (rhizome) and B. armeniaca (rhizome) would be promising anticancer remedy for hormone dependent breast cancer.