Drug discovery from medicinal plants has played an important role in the treatment of cancer. Cancer is considered as one of the dangerous disease associated with abnormal, uncontrolled growth of cell. There are about 13,000 plant species worldwide that are known to have been used as drugs. These plant species contain biologically active compounds that protect human health with respect to human carcinogenesis, acting against initiation, promotion or progression stages or destroying/blocking the DNA damaging mutagens, thus avoiding cell mutations. It is believed that herbs play vital role in the prevention and treatment of cancer. Fritillaria roylei (Kshirakakoli) contain different active compounds like peimine, peiminine, peimisine, peimiphine, peimidine, peimitidine, propeimin, sterol and these active compounds possess different pharmacological activity like galactogogue, haemostatic, ophthalmic and cytotoxic properties. So it was pertinent, to evaluate antioxidant and in-vitro cytotoxic potential of root extracts of Fritillaria roylei against human lymphoma cell lines. Antioxidant activity and in-vitro cytotoxic activity of the extracts were measured using DPPH radical scavenging method and lymphoma cell lines Jurkat and u937 respectively through MTT assay. The methanol extract of the plant showed potent antioxidant activity in a concentration dependent manner and decreased cell viability and cell growth inhibition in a dose dependent manner. Further studies are in progress to find out the active isolated compounds responsible for these activities.
