Chemical Profiling and Evaluation of Antioxidant and Anticancer Potential of Tuber Crop Amorphophallus commutatus var. wayanadensis.

Cancer and cancer-related diseases are a global health concern in the present scenario. Functional food and nutraceuticals are considered as a boon towards cancer management. Amorphophallus commutatus var. wayanadensis (ACW) is an herbaceous plant used by the local communities of Wayanad, India, for food and primary healthcare. Various radical scavenging and reducing power assays were undertaken to evaluate the antioxidant activity of methanolic extract of ACW (MEAC). In vitro anticancer activity was evaluated against HT-29 cell line by MTT assay, morphological analysis, DNA fragmentation assay and cell cycle analysis. Caspase and COX-2 enzyme assays were conducted to examine the underlying mechanism. Studies on Ehrlich Ascites Carcinoma (EAC) transplanted mice models was carried out to evaluate the in-vivo antioxidant and anticancer potential of MEAC. The major bioactive nutraceutical compound present in MEAC was isolated by bioactivity-guided fractionation. MEAC showed significant in vitro antioxidant activity. Further, MEAC promoted cytotoxicity against HT-29 cells by activating caspase-3 dependent apoptotic pathway with a cell cycle arrest at the G1/S phase and subsequent down regulation of COX-2 pathway. The potential antitumor activity of MEAC was further confirmed in EAC tumor bearing mice models in which treatment with MEAC increased the levels of antioxidant enzymes, improved the hematological profile towards normal and also augmented the life span of tumor bearing mice. ß-sitosterol isolated from ACW induces anticancer activity via caspase-dependent pathway. Our study confirmed the antioxidant and anticancer activities of ACW, which proposes the medicinal importance of this plant as a preventive and supportive therapy for arising tumors.

Immunomodulatory activity of methanolic extract of Amorphophallus commutatus var. wayanadensis under normal and cyclophosphamide induced immunosuppressive conditions in mice models.

The present study investigates the immunomodulatory activity of methanolic extract of Amorphophallus commutatus var. wayanadensis (MEAC) under normal and cyclophosphamide induced immunosuppressive conditions in Swiss albino mice models. The splenocyte proliferation assay was performed to study in-vitro immunomodulatory activity of MEAC, where sheep RBC (SRBC) was used to induce immune responses in the experimental animals. The in-vivo immunomodulatory activity was evaluated by humoral antibody titer, quantification of plaque forming cells, qualitative hemolysis, delayed type hypersensitivity assay, phagocytic index and neutrophil adhesion assays. The chemoprotective effect of MEAC was determined against cyclophosphamide induced immunosuppression in mice models. MEAC exhibited significant mitogenic and co-mitogenic activity on Con-A, PHA and LPS stimulated splenocytes isolated from mouse spleen in a dose dependent manner. Furthermore, MEAC also elicited significant immunomodulatory activity with enhanced activation of humoral immune response along with a suppressive effect on cell mediated immune response. Hematological and histopathological analysis revealed the protective effect of MEAC against CP induced immunosuppression. The significant immunomodulatory activity of MEAC observed in the current study could be due to the fatty acids and phytosterols present in the extract.

Hepatoprotective effect of polyphenols rich methanolic extract of Amorphophallus commutatus var. wayanadensis against CCl4 induced hepatic injury in swiss albino mice.

The present study is to evaluate the hepatoprotective and antioxidant activity of methanolic extract of Amorphophallus commutatus var. wayanadensis against carbon tetrachloride induced hepatotoxicity in mice models. Hepatic injury was induced by injecting 0.2% CCl4 in olive oil intra peritoneally on 15th day of drug administration. Hepatoprotective activity was evaluated by estimating the levels of serum markers like alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), bilirubin and histopathological studies. Antioxidant potential of the extract was estimated by measuring the levels of antioxidant enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione-s-transferase (GST), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and total reduced glutathione in the liver samples. Histopathological and biochemical results elicited the methanolic extract of A. commutatus has significant hepatoprotective activity comparable to the standard silymarin. The extract also showed dose dependent increase of antioxidant enzymes in CCl4 induced hepatotoxicity models. The methanolic extract of A. commutatus showed significant hepatoprotective and antioxidant activity which might be attributed due to the polyphenolic compounds present in the extract.