Sustainable Utilization of Medicinal Plants: Exploring the Antioxidant and Anticancer Potential of Polaritybased Plant Fractions

Abstract

Medicinal plants remain an important source of bioactive compounds for the development of new therapeutics. In the present study, polarity-based fractions of Ricinus communis, Baliospermum montanum, Luffa acutangula, and Coriandrum sativum were evaluated for their antioxidant and antiproliferative activities against human breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231) and DPPH free radical scavenging assay. Several fractions exhibited significant, dose-dependent inhibition of cancer cell growth, with ethyl acetate and chloroform fractions showing the strongest activities and DPPH free radical inhibition. Chemical profiling by GC–MS/MS and LC–MS/MS tentatively identified a broad range of bioactive metabolites, including phenolics, terpenoids, and fatty acid derivatives. The findings suggest that these medicinal plants possess promising antioxidant and anticancer potential and may serve as valuable sources for the discovery of novel plant-derived therapeutic agents.