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β-caryophyllene oxide, sitosterol, stigmasterol, scopoletin, and palmitic acid present in the

plant.
Keywords: Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, Metabolite profiling, Bioactive

compounds, Antioxidant, Anticancer
INTRODUCTION

The importance of several medicinal plants for treatment of numerous diseases has
been reiterated around the world including ancient records of Chinese, Native Americans,

Africans, Egyptians, Indian Ayurveda etc [1]. The World Health Organization (WHO) also

reported a major proportion of the world population (70-80%) to depend on herbal medicines
for health care activities [2]. Spilanthes acmella is an important medicinal plant that has been

traditionally used for treatment of toothache, fever and infections. Recently the plant has been

reported to exhibit anaesthetic, antipyretic, antifungal, vasorelaxant, and immunomodulatory
effects [3]. The plant contains several medicinally important bioactive compounds that are

produced as secondary metabolites in response to genetic as well as various biotic and abiotic
stress conditions. Amongst, spilanthol has been illustrated to possess anti-inflammatory and

insecticidal properties [3,4]. Besides, S. acmella has also been reported to contain abundant
nutrient elements (K, Mg, N, Fe, Na, Mn, Cu and Zn) that play crucial roles in the growth,

development and regulatory mechanisms of biological processes [5]. In recent years

persistent search for potentially bioactive compounds essentially from medicinal plants has
been prioritized understanding the essence of their applications in modern drug development.

About 25% of modern medicines including morphine, quinine, artemisinin, paclitaxel etc. are
derivatives of herbal products or their analogues [6].

While cancer is one of the major causes of death in the world that accounted for
around 9.6 million deaths in 2018 [7]. It is caused as a result of complex and heterogenous

mechanisms that affect various cellular signalling and regulatory pathways, consequently

leading to unusual behavior of cells including incessant growth and proliferation, inhibition
of apoptosis, neoangiogenesis and metastasis [8]. Moreover oxidative stress induced

excessive production of free radicals and subsequent alteration cellular mechanisms through

damage of DNA or mutation are associated with cancer development. In the last few decades
progression of our understanding on cancer biology has changed the paradigm of cancer

treatment and several key cellular signaling molecular targets have been identified. However,
detrimental side effects and other limitations of the currently available anticancer drugs

further necessitate a continual search for other pharmaceutically important bioactive
compounds. Therefore, exploration of more effective and non-toxic compounds from

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