ABSTRACT
Medicinal plants constitute an important component of flora and are widely distributed in Bangladesh. The pharmacological evaluation of substances from plants is an established method for the identification of lead compounds which shows the way to the development of novel and safe medicinal agents. Based on the ethnopharmacological literature two widely used medicinal plants Phyllanthus amarus and Monstera deliciosa were chosen to investigate their cytotoxicity through brine shrimp lethality bioassay which is simple, reliable and convenient method for assessment of bioactivity of medicinal plants. The plants were collected from their natural habitat, dried under shade and extracted with ethyl acetate. In this study, ethyl acetate extract of Phyllanthus amarus exhibited potent cytotoxicity with LC50 values of 9.15μg/ml and 20.16μg/ml of leaves and the whole plant respectively. Monstera deliciosa exhibited cytotoxicity with LC50 values of 36.60μg/ml and 300.4 μg/ml of leaves and branches respectively. From the result, it can be predicted that extractives of Phyllanthus amarus possess cytotoxic principles and showed significantly more potency than in leaves rather than whole plant. In case of Monstera deliciosa the extractives of leaves exhibited very mild mortality while the extractives of branches did not show considerable cytotoxicity.