Antimicrobial Activities of Extracts and Flavonoid Glycosides of Corn Silk (Zea mays L)

Corn silk refers to the stigmas of Zea mays L. (Gramineae) from the female flowers of maize. It is medicinally used in a number of diseases and contained a number of flavonoids. Screening of plants against pathogenic bacteria is an important step to validate its medicinal properties. Therefore, the aim of this study was to screen the antimicrobial activities of different solvent extracts, flavonoids of corn silk and compare the activities with standard antibiotic gentamycin. The pet-ether (PECS), chloroform (CECS) and methanol (MECS) extracts (25 mg/mL) of corn silk were tested for their antimicrobial activity. Twelve pathogenic bacteria such as Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacter aerogenase, Salmonella typhi, Salmonella paratyphi, Escherichia coli, Shigella sonneii, Shigella flexneri, Proteus vulgaris, Proteus mirabilis and one fungus Candida albicans were used to screen the extracts. Gentamycin  (50 mg/mL) was used as reference antibiotic. Two isolated flavonoid glycosides (2.0 mg/mL) of corn silk were tested for their antimicrobial activity. The microbial growth inhibitory potential was determined by using the agar hole-plate diffusion method. PECS, MECS and flavonoids were sensitive against eleven bacteria out of twelve bacteria. CECS was sensitive only against five bacteria.  No extracts and flavonoids were sensitive against Escherichia coli and Candid albicans. The results were compared with gentamycin, which was sensitive against all the bacteria tested. Extracts and flavonoids showed significantly (p<0.05) higher sensitivity against a number of bacteria than gentamycin

Assessment Of Herbal Crude And Extract Of Labisia Pumila By Chemometrics-Assisted Interpretation Of Ftir.

Pharmacognosical analysis of medical herbs remains as a challenging issue for analytical chemists, as herbs are a complicated system of mixtures

Bioactive Markers Based Pharmacokinetic Evaluation of Extracts of a Traditional Medicinal Plant, Piper sarmentosum

In vitro assays are economical and easy to perform but to establish relevance of their results to real clinical outcome in animals or human, pharmacokinetics is prerequisite. Despite various in vitro pharmacological activities of extracts of Piper sarmentosum, there is no report of pharmacokinetics. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate ethanol extract of fruit of the plant in dose of 500 mg kg−1 orally for pharmacokinetics. Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into groups 1, 2, and 3 (each n = 6) to study absorption, distribution and excretion, respectively. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ultraviolet detection was applied to quantify pellitorine, sarmentine and sarmentosine in plasma, tissues, feces and urine to calculate pharmacokinetic parameters. Pellitorine exhibited maximum plasma concentration (Cmax) 34.77 ng mL−1 ± 1.040, time to achieve Cmax (Tmax) 8 h, mean resident time (MRT) 26.00 ± 0.149 h and half life (t1/2) 18.64 ± 1.65 h. Sarmentine showed Cmax 191.50 ± 12.69 ng mL−1, Tmax 6 h, MRT 11.12 ± 0.44 h and t1/2 10.30 ± 1.98 h. Sarmentosine exhibited zero oral bioavailability because it was neither detected in plasma nor in tissues, and in urine. Pellitorine was found to be distributed in intestinal wall, liver, lungs, kidney, and heart, whereas sarmentine was found only in intestinal wall and heart. The cumulative excretion of pellitorine, sarmentine and sarmentosine in feces in 72 h was 0.0773, 0.976, and 0.438 μg, respectively. This study shows that pellitorine and sarmentine have good oral bioavailability while sarmentosine is not absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract

Preparation and characterization of nano liposomes of Orthosiphon stamineus ethanolic extract in soybean phospholipids

BACKGROUND: O. stamineus is a medicinal herb with remarkable pharmacological properties. However, poor solubility of the active principles limits its medicinal value. This study sought to prepare nano liposomes of OS ethanolic extract in unpurified soybean phospholipids in order to improve its solubility and permeability. OS liposomes were prepared by the conventional film method, and were characterized for solubility, entrapment efficiency, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), particle size and zeta potential, release, absorption in everted rat intestinal sacs, and DPPH scavenging effect. RESULTS: OS liposomes showed substantial enhancement of extract’s solubility from 956 ± 34 to 3979 ± 139 μg/ml, with entrapment efficiency of 66.2 ± 0.9%. FTIR study indicates interaction between soybean phospholipids and OS extract. TEM and dynamic light scattering showed presence of round anionic nano liposomes with particle size and zeta potential of 152.5 ± 1.1 nm and −49.8 ± 1.0 mV, respectively. A study using the fluorescent probe pyrene showed the critical micellar concentration is 9.2 ± 2.9 μg/ml. Release studies showed 94 ± 0.1% release in non-formulated extract and 62.4 ± 0.1% in OS liposomes. Released extract from OS liposomes showed improvement in DPPH scavenging effect, IC50 = 23.5 ± 1.1 μg/ml compared to 32.4 ± 0.5 μg/ml in non-formulated extract. OS liposomes were stable at pH 5.5 and 7.4, but showed reversible agglomeration at pH 1.6. Absorption in everted rat intestinal sacs showed substantial improvement in permeability of 3′-hydroxy-5, 6, 7, 4″-tetramethoxyflavone, sinensetin, eupatorin, and 3 other unknown compounds. CONCLUSIONS: Enhanced solubility, absorption and antioxidant effect may improve the overall pharmacological effects and medicinal value of OS ethanolic extract

IN VITRO STUDIES ON CALCIUM OXALATE CRYSTAL GROWTH INHIBITION OF STROBILANTHES CRISPUS EXTRACTS

 ABSTRACT Strobilanthes crispus L. (Acanthaceae) has been used locally in traditional medicine for kidney stone and related diseases. These plant extracts have the ability to inhibit the calcium oxalate crystal growth, where the ability of water extract is higher than those of the 70% acetone, methanol and acetone extracts. The ability to inhibit the calcium oxalate crystal growth of these extracts is lower than that of sodium citrate as positive control. Keywords: Strobilanthes crispus, Acanthaceae, crystal inhibition, calcium oxalat

Evaluation of ethanol extracts of leaves and fruit of Piper sarmentosum for in vivo hepatoprotective activity

The present study is aimed to describe hepatoprotective activity of extracts of a medicinal plant, Piper sarmentosum, in rats against CCl4-induced toxicity. Seven groups of Sprague Dawley rats each containing six animals were treated as: group I (CCl4), group II (control), group III and IV (fruit extract 500 and 250 mg/kg, respectively), group V and VI (leaf extract 500 and 250 mg/kg, respectively) and group VII (vitamin-E). The extracts and vitamin-E were administered orally for 14 days whilst equivalent amount of sample vehicle was administered to CCl4 and control groups. Four hour following the last dose, a single dose of CCl4 (1.5 mg/kg, 1:1 olive oil) was administered orally to animals of all the groups except control. After 24 h blood was collected for the determination of hepatic function markers, and the animals were sacrificed to get liver for histology. Comparison of hepatic function markers and histology of pretreated and CCl4 groups indicated that both the extracts in the two doses had protected liver from CCl4 toxicity (P < 0.05). It is concluded from the present study that use of the plant as a vegetable or in the form of extracts may be valuable to protect liver from oxidative stress in hepatitis and long-term therapyColegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

IN VITRO ANTIANGIOGENESIS ACTIVITY OF STANDARDIZED EXTRACTS OF Piper sarmentosum Roxb

 ABSTRACT This study was undertaken to investigate the antiangiogenesis activity of standardized extracts/fractions of the leaf of Piper sarmentosum, using rat aorta model. The pulverized leaf was extracted sequentially and methanol extract was further fractionated with hexane, chloroform and ethylacetate. Both extracts and fractions were standardized by reverse phase HPLC with UV detection at 260 nm, using two markers, sarmentine and sarmentosine. Chloroform and methanol extracts have exhibited antiangiogenesis activity of 100% and 20% respectively. Antiangiogenesis activity of hexane and chloroform fractions was found to be 10% and 90% respectively, while ethylacetate fraction was found to be inactive. The analysis of most active extract and fraction has exhibited different profile by HPLC on the basis of amides. This study indicates that chloroform extract and fraction have promising antiangiogenesis activity and have potential for diseases involving angiogenesis. Keywords : antiangiogenesis activity, Piper sarmentosum Roxb

Discriminating Factors for Ficus deltoidea Jack Varieties by HPTLC coupled with Chemometrics

Ficus deltoidea Jack (FD) is a highly potential herb. However, there is serious confusion on selecting the right plant as FD occurs in several varieties. In this study, a high-performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) method was developed to determine the discriminating factors of FD varieties. Eight varieties of methanol extract, five varieties of water extract and marker compounds, vitexin and isovitexin were analysed. Chemometric analysis; principal component (PCA), hierarchical cluster (HCA) and discriminant (DA) on HPTLC Rf value were performed. For methanol extracts, total variance of PCA score was 66.78% and clustered apart from each other. Total variance of water extract was 82.25%, which grouped into three clusters. HCA analysis produced three clusters for both types of extracts. Discriminant analysis revealed that methanol and water extracts were 100% discriminated. This finding suggests that the discriminant factors between methanol extracts were unidentified compounds at Rf value of 0.51, 0.72 and isovitexin. Meanwhile, isovitexin and vitexin were identified as discriminant factors for water extract

Concentration Analysis of Eurycoma Longijolia Using Principle Compenent Based Artificial Taste Sensor.

Water extract of Eurycoma Longifolia (Tongkat Ali) were analysed by artificial-taste sensor Employing 4mm diameter and 20cm thickness lipid membrane technology