Comparative Study of Piper sylvaticum Roxb. Leaves and Stems for Anxiolytic and Antioxidant Properties Through in vivo, in vitro, and in silico Approaches.

Md Adnan,Mohammad Shah Hafez Kabir,Md Obyedul Kalam Azad,Md Ashiqur Rahman Chowdhury,Shaibal Das Gupta,Young Seok Lim,A.T.M Mostafa Kamal,Kazi Asfak Ahmed Chowdhury,Md Nazim Uddin Chy,Dong Ha Cho,A T M Mostafa Kama

doi:10.3390/biomedicines8040068

Abstract

Piper sylvaticum Roxb. is traditionally used by the indigenous people of tropical and subtropical countries like Bangladesh, India, and China for relieving the common cold or a variety of chronic diseases, such as asthma, chronic coughing, piles, rheumatic pain, headaches, wounds, tuberculosis, indigestion, and dyspepsia. This study tested anxiolytic and antioxidant activities by in vivo, in vitro, and in silico experiments for the metabolites extracted (methanol) from the leaves and stems of P. sylvaticum (MEPSL and MEPSS). During the anxiolytic evaluation analyzed by elevated plus maze and hole board tests, MEPSL and MEPSS (200 and 400 mg/kg, body weight) exhibited a significant and dose-dependent reduction of anxiety-like behavior in mice. Similarly, mice treated with MEPSL and MEPSS demonstrated dose-dependent increases in locomotion and CNS simulative effects in open field test. In addition, both extracts (MEPSL and MEPSS) also showed moderate antioxidant activities in DPPH scavenging and ferric reducing power assays compared to the standard, ascorbic acid. In parallel, previously isolated bioactive compounds from this plant were documented and subjected to a molecular docking study to correlate them with the pharmacological outcomes. The selected four major phytocompounds displayed favorable binding affinities to potassium channel and xanthine oxidoreductase enzyme targets in molecular docking experiments. Overall, P. sylvaticum is bioactive, as is evident through experimental and computational analysis. Further experiments are necessary to evaluate purified novel compounds for the clinical evaluation.

Highlights

Human neurological disarrays have instigated as ever-growing intimidation in the public health sector and significantly affected the function and quality of life [1]
A previous acute toxicity study described that the plant had no mortality, abnormal behavior, and neurological changes up to 2000 mg/kg dose, which is a clear indication that the plant extract has low toxicity profile and is safe for a therapeutic dose [11]
Medicinal plants are the innumerable resources of pharmacologically active components

Summary

Introduction

Human neurological disarrays have instigated as ever-growing intimidation in the public health sector and significantly affected the function and quality of life [1]. The stressful state leads to oxidative stress, which has been described as a potential contributor to the pathogenesis of several chronic diseases, such as diabetes, liver damage, inflammation, aging, neurological disorders, and cancer [3,4]. To treat such chronic diseases, medicinal plants derived natural products have been used around the globe clinically, even for the management of normal fever to life-threatening conditions [5]. The rural people of Bangladesh consume medicinal plants as a primary source of health-care, so they play a pivotal role in treating a large number of diseases [6]. The folkloric practice of medicinal plants is mainly based on empirical shreds of evidence which need proper rationalization on scientific grounds

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