Jundishapur J Nat Pharm Prod. 2017 August; 12(3 (Supp)):e64312. Published online 2017 August 31. doi: 10.5812/jjnpp.64312. Research Article Biological and Phytochemical Screening of Eremostachys azerbaijanica Rech.f. Aerial Parts Abbas Delazar, 1 Parina Asgharian, 1,2 and Solmaz Asnaashari 3,* 1 Drug Applied Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran 2 Student Research Committee, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran 3 Biotechnology Research Center, TabrizUniversity of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran * Corresponding author: Solmaz Asnaashari, Biotechnology Research Center, Tabriz Univercity of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran. Tel: +98-4133364038, Fax: +98-4133379420, E-mail: asnaasharisolmaz@gmail.com Received 2016 September 02; Revised 2017 February 11; Accepted 2017 February 19. Abstract Background: Eremostachys azerbaijanica rech.f. is an endemic species with an anti-inflammatory effect in Iranian folk medicine. Objectives: The aerial part extracts of Eremostachys azerbaijanica were investigated for their general toxicity, antibacterial and anti- proliferative activities. Moreover, preliminary phytochemical investigations were carried out on the extracts. Methods: Brine shrimp lethality test was performed to evaluate general toxicity. Anti-proliferative and anti-bacterial activities were evaluated by (3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) and disc diffusion methods. Additionally, all the extracts were tested for the presence of various phytoconstituents by different reagents. Results: In our research, the n-Hexane extract situated the greatest active part in the brine shrimp lethality test, whereas methanol (MeOH) extract didn’t show substantial effect. MTT assay was carried out on one normal cell line and 2 cancer cell lines including the human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC), the human colon adenocarcinoma (HT29), and the human lung carcinoma (A549), respectively. The end results indicated that the n-Hexane and dichloromethane (DCM) extracts possessed potent anti-proliferative effects against HT29 and A549 cell lines. Interestingly, none of these 3 extracts showed any important effect against HUVEC cells. As a final point, these 3 extracts didn’t have any antimicrobial activities against gram positive, gram negative, and Candida albicans species. Conclusions: n-Hexane extract had the maximum cytotoxicity against Artemia salina and A549 cells, whereas DCM extract was the most potent fraction against HT29 cell line. Preliminary phytochemical screening indicated that the DCM and n-Hexane extracts contained sterols, triterpenoids and cardiac glycosides, which might cause the observed anti-proliferative activity. Keywords: General Toxicity, Cytotoxicity, Antimicrobial, Phytochemical, Eremostachys azerbaijanica 1. Background The genus Eremostachys is present as the one of the main genera of the Lamiaceae family, which was repre- sented by nearly 60 species that occur mostly in Cen- tral Asian countries such as Armenia, Turkmenistan, and USSR. Traditional knowledge showed anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of rhizomes of various species of Er- emostachys (1). Previous investigations reported the other biological properties such as antioxidant, antimalarial, anti-bacterial, antidepressant, and antinociceptive activi- ties (1-6). Phytochemical studies on the extracts of some species of this genus have indicated the presence of dif- ferent natural compounds. The rhizomes of E. laciniata were an important source of iridoid glycosides, flavonoids, and phytosterols (2, 5, 6). Ferulic acid derivatives, fu- ranolabdane diterpene glycoside, iridoid glycosides, and phenylethanoid glycosides have been identified from the rhizomes of E. glabra (7-9). Loasin A and B and Loasifolin with flavonoid structure and Eremoside A to C with iri- doids skeleton have also been isolated from E. loasifolia (10-12). Other studies showed the presence of iridoid gly- cosides from E. moluccelloides and an isoflavone structure from E. vicaryi (13, 14). Phytochemical studies on the essen- tial oil composition of species of this genus have illumi- nated the presence of terpenoid structures, linear hydro- carbons, and their derivatives (15-21). E. azerbaijanica Rech. f. is one of the indigenous plants of the East Azerbaijan province of Iran. Phyto- chemical investigations demonstrated the presence of phenylethanoids and iridoid glycosides from the root and a phenylethanoid as well as a flavonoid from aeria parts of E. azerbaijanica (22-24). Copyright © 2017, Jundishapur Journal of Natural Pharmaceutical Products. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited.