Phytochemical, antioxidant, brine shrimp lethality and antiproliferative analyses of Solanum dasyphyllum schum. & thonn. leaf and fruit extracts [Solanaceae]

Solanum dasyphyllum is an edible egg plant belonging to Solanaceae family. The fruit and leaf of S. dasyphyllum are traditionally used to relief swellings and oedema. In this study, we investigated the phytochemical constituents, DPPH antioxidant activity, brine shrimp lethality and cytotoxicity on human cancer cell lines of the leaf and fruit extracts of S. dasyphyllum.Methods: The leaf and fruit extracts of S. dasyphyllum were subjected to phytochemical screening, in vitro antioxidant assay using DPPH, brine shrimp lethality (BSL) bioassay and MTT colorimetric assay using human cancer cell lines.Results: The leaf and fruit of S. dasyphyllum tested positive for the presence of alkaloids, tannins, saponins and cardiac glycosides. Extract of the leaf (IC50 of 274.6±2.45 and LC50 of 406.0±7.41) and fruit (278.2±2.68 µg/mL and 766.7±9.14 µg/mL) displayed weak DPPH radical scavenging activity and brine shrimp lethality (BSL) compared to ascorbic acid (IC50=20.2±0.36 µg/mL) and cyclophosphamide (LC50 of 98.76±0.15 µg/mL) respectively. Compared to the fruits extracts, the leaf extract was found to be more cytotoxic with CC50 of 28.46±1.42, 2.99±0.15 and 23.33±2.7 µg/mL on the human cancer cell lines Rd, Hep-2c and the normal cell line, Vero, respectively in the MTT colorimetric assay.Significance: The leaf and fruit extracts of S. dasyphyllum had weak DPPH activity and elicited mild cytotoxicity in BSL assay. However, the leaf extract of displayed a higher cytotoxicity than the fruit extract on human cancer line used in the study.