SAPONINS AND SAPOGENINS OF AGAVE WITH RESPECT TO DIVERSE PHARMACOLOGICAL ROLE OF HECOGENIN: Pharmacological Role of Hecogenin

The review outlines the current understandings of saponins and sapogenins in agave species with special focus on pharmacological role of hecogenin in numerous preclinical studies. A systematic literature survey was done on the pharmacological activities of hecogenin during the past 40 y with electronic databases like PubMed, Science Direct, Wiley, SciFinder, Google Scholar, Web of Science and Scopus. Hecogenin, a steroidal sapogenin found abundantly in the leaves of Agave genus species such as, Agave sisalana, Agave cantala, Agave aurea and many more. This phytosteroid (hecogenin) is used as initial material for the synthesis of steroidal drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. Hecogenin has exhibited potential role in the management of a number of disorders such as inflammation, arthritis, cancer, gastric ulcer, cardiotonic and larvicidal activity. In this review, we have summarized the saponins and sapogenins present in the Agave species and pharmacological roles of hecogenin with their mechanism of action

HEPATOPROTECTIVE EFFECT OF VIRGOLIV SYRUP AGAINST CCL4 INDUCED HEPATIC INJURY IN RATS

Objective: To evaluate the hepatoprotective effect of Virgoliv syrup on CCl4 induced hepatic injury in rats.Methods: The hepatic injury was induced by intra peritoneal injection of 0.3 % CCl4 (10 ml/kg) diluted with olive oil (1:1). The biochemical parameters such as alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), total bilirubin (TB) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and antioxidant enzymes such as malondialdehyde (MDA), reduced glutathione (GSH), catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were estimated to assess the liver function. The histopathological changes of liver tissues were studied and compared with silymarin.Results: The levels of biochemical parameters such as ALT, AST, ALP and TB were significantly increased in CCl4 treated rats when compared with the normal rats but the Virgoliv syrup treated rats showed maximum reduction of ALT, AST, ALP and TB levels in significant manner. The CCl4 treated rats showed significantly increase in MDA and decrease in GSH, CAT and SOD levels of liver tissue when compared to control rats. Treatments of rats with Virgoliv syrup and silymarin showed significant improvment in antioxidant enzyme levels in liver tissue. The hepatoprotective effect of Virgoliv syrup was confirmed by histopathological examination of liver tissues.Conclusion: It can be concluded that Virgoliv syrup showed significant hepatoprotective activity against CCl4 induced hepatic damage and this might be due to scavenging of free radicals as evident by recovery of antioxidant enzymes such as CAT, GSH and SOD towards normalization and decreased lipid peroxidation.Â