Phytochemical profiling of Pleurospermum candollei flowers and stems reveals antioxidant constituents with topoisomerase II-targeted anticancer potential.

The current research provides the comparative chemical analysis of hexane fractions obtained from the stem and flower of Pleurospermum Candollei with their antioxidant and cytotoxic evaluations. The tentative structures of less polar compounds in flower and stem of P. Candollei were elucidated through GCMS which identified 26 and 27 compounds from hexane fraction of P. candollei flower and stem, respectively. Ten compounds were common in both fractions with different percentages. The antioxidant potential of extracts and hexane fractions of P. candollei were assessed, where both flower and stem hexane fractions showed good-to-moderate antioxidant activity. While stem fraction (IC50 =14.2 ± 0.6 µg/mL) and stem extract (IC50 = 19.1 ± 0.6 µg/mL) showed more antioxidant potential compared to the flower fraction (IC50 = 45.1 ± 0.2 µg/mL) and flower extract (IC50 = 22.1 ± 0.3 µg/mL). Additionally, cytotoxic activity of both flower and stem fractions was investigated against breast (MCF-7) and prostate (LN-CaP) cancer cell lines where flower hexane fraction showed outstanding activity (IC50 =14.7 ± 0.2 µg/mL) against breast cancer (MCF-7) cell line as compared to doxorubicin (IC50 = 27.7 ± 1.1 µg/mL). Furthermore, in-silico strategy explored the binding potential of flower fraction identified compounds with topoisomerase-II. This study reflects that P. candollei may serve as a natural source of novel drug candidates.