Evaluation of Antioxidant, Cytotoxic, Antibacterial and Thrombolytic Activity of the Methanolic Extracts of Ficus racemosa Fruits

Aims: The aim of this study was to find out the antioxidant, cytotoxicity, antibacterial and thrombolytic activity of the methanolic extract of fruit of F. racemosa.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried out in August 2017 in the Department of Pharmacy, Southeast University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Materials and Methods: Total antioxidant capacity, DPPH free radical scavenging, total phenolic content, total flavonoid content activity was determined by several standard methods. Cytotoxicity activity was determined against brine shrimp nauplii by using the brine shrimp lethality bioassay. Vincristine sulphate is used as positive control. The antibacterial activity was evaluated using the disk diffusion technique here Kanamycin was used as standard. The thrombolytic activity was determined by clot lysis method.

Results: The total antioxidant capacity of crude methanolic extract was also found very good compared to standard catechin. IC50 of BHT (standard) and crude methanol extract were 9.24 μg/ml and 11.36 μg/ml respectively. The presence of endogenous substances in F. racemosa fruits that may act as an antioxidant was established by measuring the total content of phenolic, flavonoid compounds. For the cytotoxicity test, in brine shrimp lethality bioassay, the LC50 value obtained was 12.34 µg/ml of the methanolic extract of the F. racemosa fruits. The zone of inhibition of fruit extracts of F. racemosa was in the range from 11 to 18 mm and the highest activity was observed against Staphylococcus aureus at 500 μg/disc having a zone of inhibition of 18 mm in diameter. For thrombolytic test, F. racemosa extracts showed poor clot lysis activity (21.1%) compared to the standard streptokinase (SK) whose clot lysis activity was 61.31%.

Conclusion: From the research it can be concluded that the methanolic extracts of F. racemosa fruits possess significant antioxidant, cytotoxic, antimicrobial, thrombolytic activity that could be a better treatment of diseases. So, further studies are recommended to isolate the exact compounds responsible this activity and their efficacy need to be tested.