“Invitro Cytotoxicity and Free Radical Scavenging Activity of aqueous extract of Cucumis melo”

Cucumis melo is a species of melon that has been developed into many cultivated varieties. These include smooth skinned varieties such as honey dew, Crenshaw, casaba and different netted cultivars. It is anaccessory fruit of a type called an epigenous berry. Melons are a good source of potassium, vitamin A, folate and generally used as laxative. The aqueous extract of Cucumis melo fruit pulp was found to contain hydroxyl radical, super oxide radical, nitric oxide radical, DPPH activity. It possessed Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power and was found to possess cytotoxic effect against Ehrlich’s Ascites Carcinoma cells. Studies on cytotoxicity broadly involve the metabolic alterations of the cells, including the death of cells as a result of toxic effects of the compounds. In case of anticancer drugs, the deaths of cells were noted. The cancer cells used for the presentstudy is Ehrlich’s Ascites Carcinoma that are transplantable, poorly differentiated malignant tumor which appeared originally as a spontaneous breast carcinoma in a mouse. It grows in both solid and ascitic forms. The in vitro cytotoxicity of the aqueous extract of Cucumis melo against Ehrlich’s Ascites Carcinoma cells were done at different concentrations 10μg, 20μg, 30μg, 40μg, 50μg, 100μg, 200μg, 300μg, 400μg and 500μg for a period of 3 hours treatment. The control and treated cells were checked for viability by Trypan blue viabilitymethod. The stained cells and unstained cells were counted using microscope and percentage of cytotoxicity were calculated. The aqueous extract of Cucumis melo showed cytotoxic effect against the Ehrlich’s cancer cells in a dose dependent manner. As the concentration of the extract increased the cytotoxicity also increased. Maximum cytotoxicity was observed at the concentration of 500μg of the extract. 50% of the Cytotoxicity was observed at the concentration of 300μg.