In vitro antiproliferative, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities and phenolic profile of Centaurea saligna (K.Koch) Wagenitz

In this study, methanol extract (CSM) and their hexane (CSH), chloroform (CSC), ethyl acetate (CSEA) and aqueous methanol fractions (CSAM) prepared from aerial parts of Centaurea saligna (K.Koch) Wagenitz were investigated for in vitro antiproliferative, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity. Anticancer, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory activities of these extracts were carried out by MTT, DPPH-ABTS, 5-lipoxygenase methods, respectively. Methanol extract and its fractions of C. saligna were evaluated for their cytotoxicity against MCF-7, A549, HeLa, HT-29, PC-3 cell lines at a concentration of 50 μg / ml. Total flavonoid and phenolic contents of extracts were detected by AlCI3 and Folin-Ciocalteu methods, respectively. Analysis of phytochemical of CSEA, showing a strong anti-inflammatory activity with good antioxidant activity, was performed by LC-MS/MS. CSC exhibited the best antiproliferative activity against HeLa, HT-29, MCF-7 cell lines with 50.18%, 46.88%, 45.42% mortality, respectively. CSEA showed the highest antioxidant activity with IC50 values of 82.05 μg/ml and 108.4 μg/ml against ABTS and DPPH radicals, respectively. The highest total phenolic amounts have been determined in CSEA with value of 379.2 mg GAE/g extract. In the same way, the highest total flavonoid amounts have been observed in CSEA with values of 170.3 mg QE/g extract. CSEA showed strong anti-inflammatory activity with IC50 value of 0.10 μg/ml when compared to indomethacine as standard (22.39 μg/ml). Analysis of CSEA by LC-MS/MS revealed that the major compounds were quinic acid, 5-caffeoylquinic acid, apigenin C-hexoside-C-pentoside, p-coumaroylquinic acid, quercetin glucoside, di-caffeoylquinic acid, isorhamnetine glucoside, isorhamnetin glucuronide and isorhamnetin derivative. These results proved that CSEA has significant anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity and CSC has good antiproliferatif activity. Also, the results demostrate that CSEA and CSC are a good source for further bioactivity-guided isolation in discovering new active antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antiproliferative compounds.