Bioactive Potential: A Pharmacognostic Definition through the Screening of Four Species from the Canary Islands.

In this work, we propose a general methodology to assess the bioactive potential (BP) of extracts in the quest of vegetable-based drugs. To exemplify the method, we studied the anticancer potential (AP) of four endemic species of genus ( L, Aiton, Choisy and L.f) from the Canary Islands. Microextracts were obtained from the aerial parts of these species and were tested against six human tumor cell lines, A549 (non-small-cell lung), HBL-100 (breast), HeLa (cervix), SW1573 (non-small-cell lung), T-47D (breast) and WiDr (colon). The methanol-water microextracts were evaluated further for cell migration, autophagy and cell death. The most promising bioactive polar microextracts were analyzed by UHPLC-DAD-MS. The extraction yield, the bioactivity evaluation and the chemical profiling by LC-MS suggested that was the species with the highest AP. Label-free live-cell imaging studies on HeLa cells exposed to the methanol-water microextract of enabled observing cell death and several apoptotic hallmarks. Overall, this study allows us to select Choisy as a source of new chemical entities with a potential interest for cancer treatment.