Assessment of free radical scavenging and anti-proliferative activities of Tinospora cordifolia Miers (Willd).

Tinospora cordifolia (Guduchi or Amrita) is an important drug of Ayurvedic System of Medicine and found mention in various classical texts for the treatment of diseases such as jaundice, fever, diabetes, cancer and skin disease etc. In view of its traditional claims, antioxidant and anti-proliferative activities were evaluated in the present study. Ethanol extract (TCE) and subsequent petroleum ether (TCP), dichloromethane (TCD), n-Butanol (TCB) and aqueous (TCA) fractions of were prepared from stems of T cordifolia. Total phenolic, flavonoid content and anti-oxidant activity was assessed by different methods. Anti-proliferative activity was assessed in cervical carcinoma (HeLa) cell lines by MTT and SRB assay. Ethanol extract and n-butanol fractions shown to be superior in their scavenging activity in all the tested methods. n-butanol fractions shown antioxidant activity with an IC The outcomes of the present study support the fact that T Cordifolia is a promising source of antioxidant agent and propose its further investigation. Moreover, dichloromethane fraction of T cordifolia shown to be the most potent anti-proliferative fraction and further mechanistic and phytochemical investigations are under way to identify the active principles.