Abstract
The present study was conducted to evaluate the antioxidant capacity and acute toxicity of the methanol extract of two Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl. varieties of dried seeds, Sweet gourd Water Jug (WJ) and bitter gourd Basket Ball (BB). The seed extracts were tested for their total phenolic contents (TPC), total flavonoid contents (TFC), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and scavenging activity to the stable free radical 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH). Both dried seed extracts were then tested for acute toxicity at doses 2 and 5 g kg-1 each. Sixty female and male rats were assigned into five groups per sex. Four groups were given low and high doses of each dried seed extract and the fifth group was given 10 % Tween 20 as a control. Kidneys and livers of all rats were assessed for biochemistry and histopathology. The seed extract of WJ revealed higher TPC, FRAP and DPPH activities compared to BB seeds, while TFC results were reversed. Toxicologically, no toxicity signs were recorded in animals. Biochemistry results were within the normal ranges with a slight increase in bilirubin and Alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and histology of kidneys and livers showed normal architecture. In conclusion, WJ and BB dried seed extracts exhibited high antioxidant activity suggesting promising therapeutic regimen against oxidative stress.
Highlights
Medicinal plants are still considered as cheap and safe, natural resource of drugs with less toxicity all over the world
Antioxidants are the compounds that when added to food products, especially to lipids and lipid-containing foods, can increase the shelf life retarding the process of lipid peroxidation, which is one of the major reasons for deterioration of food products during processing and storage
Synthetic antioxidants, such as butylatedhydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylatedhydroxytolune (BHT), have restricted use in foods as they are suspected to be carcinogenic via their binding ability to DNA and cellu
Summary
Medicinal plants are still considered as cheap and safe, natural resource of drugs with less toxicity all over the world. The bitter variety is wild plant and used for the pharmacological application, while sweet variety is used as a vegetable and medicinal. Researchers focused their study on L. siceraria varieties exploring more about their chemical composition. Studies reported that they can be used as nutritious source, in cosmetics and medicine (Mariod et al, 2015). Another study revealed that the ethanol extract of L. siceraria seeds showed excellent free radical scavenging activity (Gill et al, 2012). As an extension to our previous study on the eight Sudanese Lagenaria varieties (Mariod et al, 2015), the present study was conducted to determine the total phenol and total flavonoid contents, and acute oral toxicity of the methanol extract of sweet and bitter varieties of L. siceraria seeds from Sudan
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