Department of Pharmacy, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi 6205, Bangladesh
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2015, 15:195
doi:10.1186/s12906-015-0728-y
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/15/195
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/15/195
| Received: | 2 January 2015 |
| Accepted: | 16 June 2015 |
| Published: | 23 June 2015 |
© 2015 Uddin et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Abstract
Background
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressively developing neurodegenerative disorder
of the brain in the elderly people. Vanda roxburghii Rbr. root has been used traditionally in Bangladesh as tonic to brain and in the
treatment of nervous system disorders including AD. Therefore, we aimed to investigate
the cholinesterase inhibitory activities and antioxidant properties of the extracts
from V. roxburghii.
Methods
The crude methanol extract from the roots of plant was sequentially fractionated with
petroleum ether, chloroform, ethylacetate and water to yield their corresponding extracts.
The extracts were assessed for acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase inhibitory
activity by modified Ellman method and antioxidant property by several assays including
ferric reducing antioxidant power, scavenging of 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH)
free radical and hydroxyl radical, and inhibition of lipid peroxidation. Endogenous
substances in the extracts were analyzed by the standard phytochemical methods and
active compound was isolated by the chromatographic methods.
Results
Chloroform extract was shown to demonstrate strong ferric-reducing antioxidant power
and scavenging activity against DPPH and hydroxyl free radicals when compared with
the other extracts and the reference standard catechin. The antioxidant effect was
further verified by inhibition of lipid peroxidation in rat brain homogenates. Likewise,
the chloroform extract exhibited the highest inhibition against both the acetylcholinesterase
and butyrylcholinesterase enzymes with IC
50
values of 221.13 and 82.51 μg/ml, respectively. Phytochemical screening revealed a
large amount of phenolics and flavonoids in the chloroform extract. Bioactivity guided
separation techniques led to the isolation of a strong antioxidant from the chloroform
extract and its structure was determined as gigantol on the basis of spectral studies.
Conclusion
These results suggest that the chloroform extract of V. roxburghii, possibly due to its phenolic compounds, exert potential antioxidant and cholinesterase
inhibitory activities, which may be useful in the treatment of AD.