Growth Inhibitory and Cytotoxicity Effects of Aqueous Extract of Musanga cecropioides R. Br. Ex Tedlie (Urticaceae) Stem Bark

Background and Objective: The treatment of cancer diseases in orthodox practice is plagued with high costs, highly unpleasant side effects and the unavailability of necessary facilities. Therefore, there is a need for sustained search and research into medicinal plants which can be used to complement the efforts towards alleviating the suffering of patients. As a plant member of Urticaceae which contains some plants with reported anti-cancer properties, this study investigated its stem bark for probable anti-cancer properties through anti-proliferative, cytotoxicity and AU565 breast cancer cell line evaluations. Materials and Methods:Musanga cecropioides stem bark was evaluated for probable anti-cancer properties via bench-top cytotoxicity assay at concentrations of 20-400 µg mL‾1 and anti-proliferation/growth inhibitory at concentrations of 1-30 mg mL‾1. The extract was partitioned into aqueous and chloroform and further tested on the AU565 breast cancer cell line at a concentration of 50 µg mL‾1. Results: The extract and the fractions produced significant (p<0.05) concentration-dependent cytotoxic and growth inhibitory effects on tadpoles and guinea corn radicle. The extract and the aqueous fraction produced 100% mortality in the tadpoles at a concentration of 40 µg mL‾1 in less than 5 hrs. At 96 hrs incubation period, the radicle length of 47.24±0.48 produced by the control seeds was reduced to 17.56±0.41, 5.73±0.14 and 3.15±0.01 mm in the seeds treated with 1, 5 and 30 mg mL‾1 of the extract. These implied percentage reductions of 62.8, 87.9 and 93.3%, respectively. The aqueous fraction also showed higher anti-cancer effects than the crude extract and chloroform fraction with 28% cytotoxicity on AU565 cancer cell lines. Conclusion: The results of this study have increased the scope of the application of MC stem bark as a crude drug-containing anticancer constituent.