Background and Objectives: Cancer is believed to be one of the main challenges to
health care profession and compounds isolated from natural products play significant
role in treatment of cancer.
Sarcococca saligna (Buxaceae) contains variety of steroidal
alkaloids having numerous pharmacological and biological potentials. Hence, current
research work was designed to isolate steroidal alkaloids from
Sarcococca saligna and
to evaluate it for antioxidant and cytotoxic activity. Materials and Methods: Compounds
Alkaloid-C, Dictyophlebine, Sarcovagine-D and Holaphylline were purified by column
chromatography followed by spectroscopic techniques for their structure confirmation.
Antioxidant and cytotoxic activities were investigated against DPPH and HeLa cell lines
using ascorbic acid and doxorubicin as standard. Results: The radical scavenging effect
produced by Holaphylline and Sarcovagine-D was 80.0±3.20 and 78.0±3.20 % at
400 μg/ml concentration which was statistically similar to that of standard, while on the
same concentration inhibition for Dictyophlebine and Alkaloid-C was 10.0±0.00% and
20±1.01 %. In addition, Holaphylline showed less anticancer activity (23.88±0.243)
in cell growth of HeLa cell followed by Alkaloid-C (12.9±0.235), Dictyophlebine
(6.1±0.345), while S cytotoxic effect for Sarcovagine-D was high (5.1±0.14) in (IC 50
),
which exhibiting statistical variation from Doxorubicin (2.1±0.14%). Conclusion: This
study provided scientific report and importance of the use of steroidal alkaloids from
Sarcococca saligna as an antioxidant and cytotoxic against agents’ HeLa cell lines that
may provide a new scope toward the development of novel drugs for cancer remedy.