Assessment of Cytotoxic Effects of Latex from Cascabela thevetia (L.) Lippold and Plumeria alba L. via In vitro and In silico Approaches

Plant latex has been found to occur in more than 40 families and among them, Apocynaceae is one. Two plants of this family i.e., Cascabela thevetia (L.) Lippold and Plumeria alba L. had been chosen for the current experimental work. The aqueous and methanolic latex extracts were evaluated for their phytochemical constituents and cytotoxic activities. To determine the cytotoxic effects of the latex extracts, MTT [3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5- diphenyltetrazolium bromide] assay was performed by using cell lines A549 Human Lung Cancer and MCF-7 Human Breast Cancer. Further, for confirmation of the cytotoxic effects apoptosis assay was conducted. The richness of the latex extracts was determined by GC-MS and HPTLC methods. The preliminary phytochemical analysis of the latex extracts was conducted using GC-MS methodology. The presence of cardiac glycosides was analyzed using High-Performance Thin Layer Chromatography. Here, Digoxin was used as the standard. Studies have revealed that Na+ K+-ATPase can serve as a powerful target for developing anticancer drugs and cardiac glycosides have exhibited anticancer effects via inhibition of the Na+ K+-ATPase. Hence, molecular docking studies were conducted in which 6KPX served as the target and the compounds evaluated by the NIST library in GC-MS served as the ligands. Further, Molecular docking studies confirmed the best among the compounds based on their RF score, binding affinity, and as a binder whether these compounds were good or bad. These methodologies altogether helped in evaluating the richness of the plant latex extracts, and the potent cytotoxic molecules present in them.