Biological activities of Sutherlandia frutescens and its future perspectives

Many indigenous plants have been used for various ailments. Sutherlandia frutescens (SF) is one of the best known multipurpose indigenous plants of southern Africa, which has been used for many years by traditional healers. Anticancer (against UACC62, MCF7 and HL60 cells) and the in vitro cytokine release (interleukins: 1β, 6, 8, 10, 12p70, and TNF) abilities of aqueous and ethanolic extracts of SF were examined at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa. For the anticancer screening and cytokine release quantification; Sulforhodamine B (with Etoposide as a positive control) and Cytometric Bead Arrays (with Echinacea ethanol extract as a positive control) assays were used, respectively. Here we present the preliminary results and future perspectives of this study. From the different preparations of SF; even though the aqueous extracts displayed a decrease in cancer cell viability at higher concentrations; the decrease in cancer cell viability during exposure to the ethanol extracts was greater (on average by about 50%-UACC62, 55%-MCF7 and 85%-HL60; relative to their control). The study showed that an ethanolic extract appeared to recruit TNF and IL8 cytokines to the site of infection upon stimulation with phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate. The chemical profiles obtained using HPLC-MS provided a good guidance towards the active regions of the ethanol extract; essentially the non-polar compounds present in the ethanol extract contributed to most of the activity observed for this extract. In the future, based on an HPLC activity guided fractionation approach, the research team intends to isolate active compounds from ethanol extracts.