Importance pharmacologique des dérivés polyphénoliques

Ethnopharmacological evaluation of antioxidant, anti-angiogenic, and anti-inflammatory activity of some traditional medicinal plants used for treatment of cancer in Togo/Africa

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Cancer is a multistep disease and its management is exceedingly expensive. Nowadays medicinal plants are gaining more attention in drug discovery and approximately 70% of anticancer drugs were developed from natural products or plants. A strong candidate from medicinal plant with anticancer potential should have four major properties: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-angiogenic, and cytotoxic activities.

AIM OF THE STUDY

In order to assess Togolese traditional healer's claims about the anticancer potential of medicinal plants and obtain candidate plants for anticancer drug discovery, some species were selected from surveys and evaluated for their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-angiogenic and cytotoxic activities.

METHODS

Four species, Cochlospermum planchonii (CP), Piliostigma thonningii (PT), Paullinia pinnata (PP), and Securidaca longipedunculata (SL) were selected and analyzed to detect the phytochemical components. The mentioned bioactivities were evaluated using in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo assays.

RESULTS

Relative to SL extract, CP and PT have shown significantly high polyphenols and flavonoids content. The DPPH, FRAP, and TAC of the extracts revealed that CP, PT, and PP have a potent antioxidant effect compared to SL. MDA analysis revealed the same antioxidant activity as CP, PT and PP showed a minor MDA level. The egg albumin denaturation assay showed that IC50 of CP and PP was significantly higher than control (P < 0.05). In contrast, the Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) results showed a nonsignificant effect (P > 0.05). Notably, SL extract was nonsignificant to control in both Egg Albumin and BSA. Furthermore, angiogenesis assay showed that SL at 50 μg/ml and PP at 100 μg/ml effectively reduced the number of blood vessels than control and showed a potent anti-angiogenic effect (2.7-fold and 2.5-fold, respectively, P < 0.05). No cytotoxicity on PBMC was reported for CP, PP, and PT up to 1000 μg/ml, whereas SL at 1000 μg/ml exhibit benign cytotoxicity (P < 0.0001).

CONCLUSION

This study provided in vitro evidence supporting further evaluation on cancer cell lines and tumors in vivo.

Characterization of Terpenoids in the Essential Oil Extracted from the Aerial Parts of Scrophularia Subaphylla Growing in Iran

PURPOSE

The aim of this work was to investigate the volatiles released from aerial parts of Scrophularia subaphylla (Scrophulariaceae) which is a perennial herb growing in Azarbaijan province in Iran.

METHODS

A combination of GC-MS and GC-FID were applied for analyzing the chemical compositions of the essential oil extracted by hydro-distillation from the aerial parts of Scrophularia subaphylla (S. subaphylla).

RESULTS

Thirty six compounds, representing 97.32% of total oil were identified. High content of terpenoids (60.02%) were identified in the essential oil with Linalool (22.35%), phytol (15.74%) and geraniol (7.27%) as the most dominant compounds, while other main components were representatives of fatty acids (24.31%), indicated mainly by palmitinic acid (17.29%). DPPH assay was used for assessing the antioxidant properties of compounds. However, no remarkable free radical scavenging activity was observed. Furthermore, Disc diffusion method was applied for evaluating the antimicrobial activity of essential oil vs. gram positive and gram negative bacteria strains. The examined oil showed weak antibacterial effect.

CONCLUSION

Main constituents of S. subaphylla were terpenoids. In comparison with other genesis of Scrophularia, antioxidant and anti bacterial properties of S. subaphylla essential oil were not noticeable.