Antimicrobial, antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of some analgesic or anti-inflammatory drugs

Abstract

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are widely used to relieve pain, reduce inflammation, high temperature and fever, and prevent blood clots. There are very few studies where some of these drugs are studied simultaneously and their biological effects are compared. Therefore, in this study, commercial formulations of eight different drugs used as analgesic or anti-inflammatory were examined in terms of cell viability or cytotoxicity, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. The antibiogram resistance pattern was carried out by agar dilution method. All drugs contain one of the components dexketoprofen, diclofenac sodium, meloxicam, metamizole, paracetamol and tramadol hydrochloride as major active ingredients were tested against some human pathogenic bacteria and fungi. Drugs containing metamizole showed high antimicrobial and antifungal effects. The MIC values were ranged from 0.3125 mg/mL to 0.0625 mg/mL for most of the samples and even lower for others. Human bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B) were treated with different concentrations of these drugs for 24, 48 and 72 h. Considering the IC50 values obtained after treatments, cytotoxicity of these drugs was as follows in descending order according to their major active ingredient: diclofenac sodium, meloxicam, dexketoprofen, trometamol, paracetamol and tramadol hydrochloride. MTT results related to metamizole sodium have not been evaluated because the absorbance values will not reflect real results due to the purple color that appears while working on this drug. According to different antioxidative assays performed the drug samples including metamizole sodium and paracetamol have the highest antioxidant activity values.