Abstract

Ethanolic herbal extract residue of the seeds of Annona squamosa Linn. were tested against Dalton’s Lymphoma Ascites (DLA) tumour cells. Then its effect on the increased lifespan of mice with DLA tumour cells was studied. At high and low dosages, it exhibited 66.67 and 56.25% increase in the lifespan. Percentage of haemoglobin (Hb) and red blood cell (RBC) counts of treated were higher than that of tumour bearing mice. The white blood cell (WBC) counts of treated were lower than that of tumour bearing mice. This is a good index of tumour recovery. Further studies were focused on mice induced with solid tumour to record the tumour volume and lifespan. It is learnt from the UV-Vis, IR, ¹H and¹³C NMR spectra analyses that annoglacin-B, an acetogenin, present in the extract residue of A. squamosa may be responsible for the biological activity.

Key words: Dalton’s Lymphoma Ascites (DLA), red blood cell (RBC), white blood cell (WBC), haemoglobin (Hb), serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT), serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase (SGPT).