Chemical and Bio-guided Evaluation of Some Natural Resins as Potential Antitumor Agents

Abstract

Naturally occurring resins have beneficial pharmaceutical and nutraceutical properties. Based on the Ethnopharmacological literature, several species of natural resins used in traditional medicine were collected. In this study eleven commonly available natural resins were screened for their chemical and biological activity. Phytochemical screening of selected resins showed the presence of carbohydrates and/or glycosides, sterols and or triterpenes, flavonoids, Volatile oil and tannins. Brine shrimp lethality bioassay for the methanol extracts of different tested resinous material revealed that   Olibanum, Mastic, Myrrh and Colophony were the most active with potential cytotoxic activity (LC₅₀) at 231.0±2.02, 261.3±1.05, 575.8±1.13 and 696.2±3.05, respectively. The bio-guided biological assays revealed that Myrrh and Mastic proved to have the highest protective activity against DNA damage induced by bleomycin-iron complex with absorbance at 0.003±0.041 and 0.002±0.014 respectively. This study indicated that Olibanum, Mastic and Myrrh retained the most biological activity of all of the tested resins as potential natural antitumor agents.