Studies on cytotoxicity and antitumor screening of red and white forms of Abrus precatorius L.

The cytotoxicity study with cancer cell line A-549 indicated that the methanol insoluble fraction of crude red forms of Abrus precatorius is toxic (CTC50 175,100 mg/ml) in microculture tetrazolium assay and sulphorhodamine B assays, whereas crude and fractions of the red and white forms exhibited toxicity at still higher concentrations. However, an antitumor screening by the short-term toxicity study with DLA cells showed the extracts to be comparatively less toxic.