Bioactivity of Methanolic Leaves and Stem Extracts of Adiantum capillus-veneris L. From Southeast of Marivan

Adiantum capillus-veneris Linn is a medicinal plant belonging to Polypodiales order. Pare-siavashan is the name of Adiantum capillus-veneris Linn in pharmaceutical textbooks of Iranian Traditional Medicine. A. capillus-veneris L. as a medicinal plant was utilized to treat various infectious diseases. In this study, the extract of A. capillus-veneris L. from Kurdistan province is investigated for the first time.

The plant is collected from southeast of Marivan in October 2017. Theaim of the current study was to investigate cytotoxicity, antimicrobial, antioxidant properties and  phytochemical screening of methanol extract and polar and nonpolar subfractions of the leaves and stem of A. capillus-veneris L. separately. The antioxidant activity, total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) of the samples were determined using inhibition of free radical 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), Folin-Ciocalteu, and aluminum chloride colorimetric methods, respectively. Gentamicin, rifampin and nystatin were used as positive controls in an antimicrobial method. Both 50% lethal concentrations (LC50) and 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) of the samples were identified using regression analysis.

Theleaves and stem extractsindicated the highest antioxidative activities in DPPH test that IC50 values =56.23 ± 0.85 and 44.66 ± 1.22 μg/ml respectively, which was higher than the synthetic antioxidant butylated hydroxyl toluene (BHT: IC50= 19 ± 1.03 μg/ml). The total phenolic contents of leaves and stem extracts, as Gallic acid equivalents, were 83.62 ± 1.87 and 147.39 ± 2.35 mg/g, respectively. The amounts of total flavonoids compounds of leaves and stem extracts were also determined 58.50 ± 0.78 and 35.63 ± 0.39 mg, respectively. Alkaloids, triterpenes, flavonoids, saponins, tannins were also identified in all the extracts and glycosides were detected only in water and hexane fraction extract of the stem, also hexaneextraction fraction of stem was devoid of triterpenes and the stem and leaves which contain no tannins. The leaves water extract of A. capillus veneris L. showed maximum zone of inhibition against bactrial strains. The hexane extracts of leaves and stem of A. capillus-veneris L. showed the weakest antimicrobial activity. The brine shrimp lethality bioassay was applied for the isolation of anitumour and cytotoxic agents. The leaves and stem extracts of A. capillus-veneris L. showed significant cytotoxic activity with LC50 values of 125.893 and 97.7237 (μg/ml), respectively. Vincristine sulfate (LC50 0.751 μg/ml) was used as the reference standard of brine shrimp lethality bioassay.

 This study suggested that the extracts of the A. capillus-veneris L. may be a promising source for novel anticancer agents. The extracts showed moderate to acceptable antibacterial activities.