Bioactivity of hydro-alcoholic extract of Petroselinum crispum

Background: It is well known that the antioxidant and biological properties of plant extracts are due to their phytochemical composition and that phenolic compounds play an important role in the determination of extracts bioactivity. This study aimed to quantify the total phenolic content of an ethanolic extract obtained from Petroselinum crispum (P. crispum) leaves and to determine its in vitro bioactivity, both in non-cellular and cellular systems. Methods: The extract was obtained from fresh leaves of P. crispum using hydro-alcoholic solution of 60% ethanol as extraction solvent. The quantification of total phenol was performed by Fast Blue BB (FBBB) test. The DPPH antiradical and antioxidant activity in gallic acid equivalent (GAE) was determined by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR). Hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity was determined both in non-cellular and cellular assay. Cytotoxicity of the extract towards NIH3T3 mouse fibroblasts and human breast adenocarcinoma cells MDA-MB-231 was evaluated by neutral red uptake (NRU), mutagenicity by Ames test and anticoagulant activity by thrombin time (TT). Results: Total phenolic content of the extract was 17.2±0.9 mg of GAE/g of dry material. The extract demonstrated to have both antioxidant activity and the capability to scavenge hydrogen peroxide in a concentration dependent manner. NIH3T3 mouse fibroblasts and human breast adenocarcinoma cells MDA-MB-231 viability was selectively influenced by the extract. The addition of the extract to the culture medium of both the above cell lines, resulted in the reduction of cell death after hydrogen peroxide treatment. The Ames test demonstrated that extract was not genotoxic towards both TA98 and TA100 Salmonella typhimurium strains, with and without metabolic activation. At last, the sample, by inactivating thrombin, showed to have also an anti-coagulant effect even at low concentration values. Conclusions: The results of this study have demonstrated that the extract analysed possessed good antioxidant and radical scavenging activities when tested in cellular and non-cellular assays, as well as anti-proliferative effects towards both cancer and non-cancer cells, absence of genotoxic and ability to prolonge TT. All these bioactivities are tightly correlated to the phenolic content in a dose dependent manner.