Abstract
BackgroundDiscovering and screening for potential anti-obesity, anti-diabetic, anticancer, and antioxidant treatments from natural products still in recent times the main goal for many pharmaceutical scientists. The present investigation aimed to evaluate the chemical constituents of Ephedra alata fruits various extracts and to assess their antioxidant, antiobesity, antidiabetic, and cytotoxic effects.ResultIn this work, high content of flavonoids and phenols were observed in the methanol fraction of E. alata fruits, which reached 98.95 mg of RUE/g and 33.22 mg of GAE/g, respectively. The methanol fraction has significant inhibitory activity against DPPH, α-amylase, α-glucosidase, and lipase with an IC50 value of 1.07, 9.43, 46.16, and 66.48 µg/mL. respectively. Also has anticancer activity against HeLa cancer cell line. While the acetone fraction has potent antioxidant activity with IC50 5 µg/mL.ConclusionThe DPPH and digestive enzymes assays results showed that the methanolic fraction of E. alata fruits has potent antioxidant, anti-diabetic, and anti-obesity activities, which can be an excellent candidate for biological and chemical analysis and can be further subjected for isolation of the therapeutically active compounds with anticancer potency.
Highlights
Most of the population still depends on natural remedies, especially in developing countries
Chemicals and reagents The following materials were purchased from Frutarom (Israel), Sigma-Aldrich (Germany, USA, and Denmark), Riedel–de Haen (Germany), Alfa-Aesar (England) and Loba/Chemie, Merck, SDFCL (India): Ferric chloride, sulfuric acid (H2SO4), methanol, iodine, Benedict’s solution, hexane, acetone, chloroform, Molisch’s reagent, ((S)-(-)-6 hydroxy-2 (Trolox) ((s)-(-)-6 hydroxy-2,5,7,8-tetramethychroman2-carboxylic acid, Acarbose, α-glucosidase (Baker’s Yeast alpha-glucosidase), α-amylase, 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid (DNSA), potassium phosphate, Gallic acid, sodium carbonate, sodium hydroxide (NaOH), hydrochloric acid (HCl), Ninhydrin reagent, magnesium ribbon, FolinCiocalteu’s reagent, L-glutamine solution, MTS reagent, phosphate-buffered saline, a Pen-Strep solution composed of penicillin and streptomycin, 2,2-Diphenyl1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), porcine pancreatic amylase enzyme solution, and starch
The E. alata fruit extracts analysis showed that it contains a mixture of different phytochemicals such as protein, amino acid, reducing sugars, and saponin, in addition to phenols, tannins, and flavonoids which seems to be in high quantity in particular in the methanol extract
Summary
Most of the population still depends on natural remedies, especially in developing countries. The decongestant effect of E. alata stems resulted in its widespread use in medicine for the treatment of cough and sinusitis. In Palestine, E. alata has been used in folk medicine to treat the common cold, hay fever, asthma, and in the last few years, it was extensively used for the treatment of cancer [7]. The different extracts of E. alata were used as depurative, hypotensive, astringent, and anti-asthmatic natural products. Discovering and screening for potential anti-obesity, anti-diabetic, anticancer, and antioxidant treatments from natural products still in recent times the main goal for many pharmaceutical scientists. The present investigation aimed to evaluate the chemical constituents of Ephedra alata fruits various extracts and to assess their antioxidant, antiobesity, antidiabetic, and cytotoxic effects
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