Phytochemical screening, antimicrobial, antiaxidant, anticancer activities and nutritional values of cactus (opuntia ficus indicia) pulp and peel

Abstract

Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill is belonging to the family Cactaceae. The chemical composition of the pulp and peel of cactus showed that pulp has high content of proteins, moisture and lipid but low con-tent of total fiber and ash as compared to the peel. The peels of the cactus were considerably higher in fiber than the pulp. The ethanolic and ethyl acetate extracts of peel have high concentrations of total phenols, flavonoids, tannins, alkaloids than the pulp extracts. The ethanolic extract in both pulp and peel gave higher concentrations of phytochemical compounds than the ethyl acetate extract. Therefore, pulp and peel extract has antioxidant and antimicrobial activity against gram positive, negative bacteria and fungus. Also, the percentage of Liver cell line (HepG2), Colorectal adenocarcinoma (Caco-2) and Breast cell line (MCF-7) viability was decreased with increasing the concentrations of the ethanolic extract of the pulp and peel cactus (500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000 ^g/ml). The most pronounced reduction in the viability of cancer cells was detected after treatment with pulp extract than peel extract. The high concentrations of ethanolic extract of the pulp and peel cactus caused the high reduction in the viability of cancer cells especially in Liver cell line (HepG2). In addition, the phytochemical compound screened by GC-MS method. In this GC-MS analysis, 31 bioactive phytochemical compounds were identified in the pulp of cactus and 27 bioactive compounds were detected in peel extract. These different active phytochemicals have been found to possess a wide range of activities, which may help in the protection against incurable diseases.