Phenolic metabolites, biological activities, and isolated compounds of Terminalia muelleri extract

AbstractContext: Terminalia muelleri Benth. (Combretaceae), is rich with phenolics that have antioxidant and cytotoxic activities. No screening studies were published before on T. muelleri.Objective: The study focused on isolation and identification of secondary metabolites from aqueous methanol leaf extract of T. muelleri and evaluation of its biological activities.Materials and methods: The n-butanol extract was chromatographed on polyamide 6, and eluted with H2O/MeOH mixtures of decreasing polarity, then separated by different chromatographic tools that yielded 10 phenolic compounds. The antioxidant activity of the extract was evaluated by investigating its total phenolic and flavonoid content and DPPH scavenging effectiveness. The extract and the two acylated flavones were evaluated for their anticancer activity towards MCF-7 and PC3 cancer cell lines. Molecular docking study of the acylated flavones was performed against topoisomerase enzyme.Results and discussion: Two acylated flavonoids, apigenin-8...