Studies on Antibacterial and Anticancer Activities of Black Cardamom

Abstract

Black cardamom (Amomum subulatum) is commonly known as ‘Badi Elaichi’ is a tall, perennial, evergreen, herbaceous monocot plant. Black cardamom is well known spice, which has medicinal value. The present study has been designed to explore anticancer and antibacterial activities of black cardamom. Various extracts of seed and rind of black cardamom were evaluated for their antibacterial and anticancer activities. The extracts were tested against gram positive and gram negative bacteria for antibacterial activity and MCF-7 cells for anticancer activity. Antibacterial activity was evaluated by using agar well diffusion assay followed by determination of minimum inhibitory concentration and anticancer activity was evaluated by MTT assay against MCF-7 breast cancer cell line. The results of this study reveals that methanol extract of seed of black cardamom shows maximum inhibition against Escherichia coli whereas other extracts of seed show lower inhibition against Escherichia coli as well as other bacteria. In general seed extracts of black cardamom show higher inhibition as compare to rind extracts of black cardamom. In case of anticancer activity, all the extracts of black cardamom seed showed anticancer activity but 500 μg/ml concentration showed maximum inhibition of MCF-7 cells in all extracts of black cardamom. With these results, it appears that cardamom can be a good source of anticancer and antibacterial agent.