Publications

Abstract : Desmostachya bipinnata Stapf (Poaceae), a Sacrificial Grass is an important constituent of ayurvedic preparations of Tripanchamool, Kusablecha, and Kusadya-ghrita. The objective of the study was to evaluate the antioxidant and anticancer activities of Desmostachya bipinnata root extracts. The antioxidant activities of different concentra-tions of 70% methanolic extract of the roots of Desmostachya bipinnata were examined for different reactive oxy-gen species (ROS) scavenging activities including DPPH, nitric oxide, hydrogen peroxide and hydroxyl radical sca-venging activities. The in-vitro cytotoxic study was performed on the human cervical cancer cell lines (HeLa), hu-man laryngeal epithelial carcinoma cells (HEp-2) and NIH 3T3 using 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide [MTT]. The extract has shown effective antioxidant activity in all assay techniques. Further Desmostachya bipinnata was found to be most potent scavenger of hydrogen peroxide with IC 50 value 127.07± 6.44 µg/ml (R 2 0.982) against standard ascorbic acid 122.60± 2.14 µg/ml (R 2 0.984) respectively. The present investigation revealed that the methanolic extract of Desmostachya bipinnata possess significant in vitro anti-cancer activity at 400 μg/ml and showed inhibition in concentration dependant manner of range between 25 – 400 µg/ml on all the cell lines. The results obtained in the present study indicate that the roots of Desmostachya bipinnata are a potential source of natural antioxidants. The study indicated that Desmostachya bipinnata was more active against cervical cell lines.