Abstract For decades, plants have been a source of inspiration for new drugs. Almost all ancient civilisations and cultures depended entirely or partially on phytotherapy because of its effectiveness, accessibility, availability and dose-related low toxicity. Thus, the know-how of traditional healers is a starting point for phytochemical and pharmacological investigation of these natural medicines. Therefore, the present study was aimed at studying phytochemical, cytotoxic, anti-haemolytic and antioxidant activities of leaf and bark extracts of Azadirachta indica.
The leaves and bark of A. indica were harvested, dried and reduced to powder. Then the powder was extracted in different solvents (distilled water, ethanol and ethanol/water 70% (v / v)). The resulting extracts were subjected to phytochemical analysis by colorimetric reactions followed by the cytotoxicity test on the Vero cell line using colorimetric method at MTT. The antihemolytic activity of the promising extracts was performed on the red blood cells and the antioxidant properties of the extracts were evaluated by the DPPH radical scavenging method and Ferric ion reduction.
The results show that the extraction yields ranged from 5.02 to 20.7%. The phytochemical screening revealed the presence of alkaloids, polyphenols, saponosides and steroids. All the extracts were non-cytotoxic with CC50 values ranging from 169.73 to greater than 1000 μg/ml and two of these exhibited antihemolytic activities with 62% and 57% protection percentages. The extracts had DPPH IC50 valuesranging from 14.933 to 95.360 μg/mL. The ferric ions reducing power (OD) of the different extracts ranged from 0.15805 to 3.40545.
The activities of Azadirachta indica extracts indicate that this plant is a potential source of active compounds.
Keywords Azadirachta indica, cytotoxicity, anti-hémolytic, antioxidant.