A Chemometric Perspective on Revealing Phytochemical Compounds Associated With Antioxidant and Anti-Cancer Activities of Plants in Türkiye

Abstract

Medicinal plants serve as raw materials for phytochemicals that constitute the basis of many pharmaceutical drugs. In this regard, this study aimed to investigate phytochemical compounds, antioxidant, and anti-cancer activities of five plants (oat (Avena sativa L.), club moss (Lycopodium clavatum L.), basil (Ocimum basilicium L.), dandelion (Taraxacum officinale L.), and valerian (Valeriana officinalis L.)) from T & uuml;rkiye local plant markets. The phytochemical compounds were identified by HPLC and gallic acid (0.43-2.29 mg/g) was present in all plants. Total phenolic contents (TPC) ranged from 27.53 to 132.89 mu g GAEs/mg extract and total flavonoid contents (TFC) ranged from 14.80 to 42.07 mu g QEs/mg extract. When oat indicated the highest antioxidant activity in DPPH center dot scavenging (IC50: 134.20 mu g/mL), ABTS center dot+ scavenging (IC50: 56.07 mu g/mL) and metal chelating (IC50: 348.04 mu g/mL) assays, basil possessed the highest antioxidant activity in CUPRAC (A0.50: 51.36 mu g/mL) and phosphomolybdenum (A0.50: 45.18 mu g/mL) assays. Also, anti-cancer activity was assessed using the Alamar Blue assay, and oat was recorded as the best anti-cancer active extract on HT-29 (IC50: 53.03 mu g/mL) and HeLa (IC50: 29.17 mu g/mL) cell lines with higher activity than cisplatin (IC50: 31.02 mu g/mL for HeLa). Chemometric analysis was applied for clustering by principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) which revealed that club moss was distinguished from the other plants club moss was distinguished from other plants. These results propose that the plants studied can be important sources of promising phytochemicals as a starting point for further analysis.