Evaluating the Antioxidant Capacity, Phenolic Contents, and Anticancer Potential of Caralluma europaea Extracts

Background: Caralluma europaea (C. europaea) is a genus of shrubs in the Apocynaceae family, endemic to the Mediterranean region. Assessing the anticancer properties, total phenolic and flavonoid content, and antioxidant activity of different C. europaea extracts were the aim of this study.Methods: To determine antioxidant activity, we used three free radical scavenging assays: DPPH (2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and nitric oxide (NO) assays. Total phenolic and flavonoid contents were measured using colorimetric methods. The anti-important activity was evaluated by MTT assay.Results: Our findings showed that the efficacy of the extract in MCF7 cells decreased in the system containing chloroform, methanol, ethyl acetate, and water. The strength of the extract for U87 cells decreased according to methanolic, chloroform and water, where ethyl acetate was the strongest. The highest total phenolic and flavonoid content was found in methanol extract. All extracts showed a high scavenging activity of DPPH. Methanol extract showed the highest antioxidant activity in the NO assay of the solution, followed by ethyl acetate, chloroform, and aqueous extract. In the H2O2-based antioxidant activity assay, the methanol extract again showed the highest activity, followed by ethyl acetate, chloroform, and aqueous extracts.Conclusions: Extracts of C. europaea have  shown great potential as natural antioxidants and anticancer agents in this study, suggesting that they deserve further investigation into the food and pharmaceutical fields.Keywords: Phenolic content; Flavonoid content; Antioxidant activity; Anti-cancer activity