Anti-oxidant and anti-angiogenesis properties of Terminalia bellerica (Gaertn.) Roxb. and Terminalia chebula (Retz.) crude extracts

Terminalia bellerica (Gaertn.) Roxb. and Terminalia chebula (Retz.), are native herbs of South East Asia. The fruits have polyphenol compounds which were reported to protect cells against oxidative damage at initiation and propagation stages of angiogenesis process in the formation of new blood capillaries of cancer cells. Therefore, the methanol and chloroform extracts of T. bellerica and T. chebula were investigated in order to assess their anti-oxidant and anti-angiogenesis activities. Chloroform and methanol extracts were further fractionated by using silica gel column chromatography with various solvent systems consisting of chloroform, chloroform-acetone, acetone-methanol and methanol to yield four fractions of chloroform extracts and four fractions of methanol extracts, respectively. The screening of anti-oxidant activities indicated that chloroform: acetone fractions from methanol extracts of both T. bellerica and T. chebula showed the highest anti-oxidant activities with an IC₅₀ as 3.27 and 4.00 µg/mL in DPPH, 5.61 and 5.97 µg/mL in NO, and 194.57 and 172.34 mM Fe(II)/g in FRAP, respectively. We found that antioxidant capacity of T. bellerica and T. chebula related with total phenol content are 609.22 µg GAE/g and 538.75 µg GAE/g, respectively. For all fractions the inhibition of tumor angiogenesis on HUVECS cell was determinated. The results showed that methanol extracts show a higher inhibition on HUVECS cell than chloroform extracts and the highest inhibition showed acetone-methanol extract of T. bellerica with 84.3% and T. chebula with 68.6%. These results suggest that the methanol extracts of T. bellerica and T. chebula showed a higher anti-oxidant activity and provided the inhibition of tumor angiogenesis property on HUVECS cell than chloroform extract. And our results showed the highest anti-oxidant activity can be positively correlated with the highest total phenol content and also with the inhibitory effects on HUVECS cell.