Cancer not only affects the quality of lives of people but also it remains as a major economic burden. Hence there is a big avenue for research to develop new as well as cheap chemotherapeutics which will solve this mammoth task of eliminating cancer. In the ethnomedical approach, credence is given to oral or written information on medicinal use of the plant and based on this information this study was planned. Andrographis paniculata has been reported to have a broad range of pharmacological effects including anticancer. In this study the plant extracts were studied on human Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMC) and on HepG2 cell lines. Immunomodulatory and cytotoxic study was performed. The ability of the cell to proliferate and retains its normal morphological characteristic was determined by performing clonogenic assay. The content of Bcl-2 protein in HepG2 cells was analyzed using western blotting. For mitogen activation of mononuclear cells, the production of IL-2 was determined. The results of the study revealed, the extracts tested were not at all toxic at any of the concentrations. Protein and enzyme based assays SRB and MTT also revealed that the extracts were not toxic instead the results showed that the plant extracts proliferated the cells. By clonogenic assay the extracts showed antiproliferative activity on Hep G2 cell line. The results of this study clearly show that Andrographis paniculata used in this study can be effectively used to cure cancer.
