Evaluation of Analgesic, Anti-inflammatory and CNS Depressant Potential of Dendrophthoe falcata (Linn.) Leaves Extracts in Experimental Mice Model

Abstract

Plants are extraordinary reservoir of bioactive natural products, many of which exhibit chemical and structural features on outstanding biological activities in animals. Dendrophthoe falcata (Linn.) is an important parasitic plant extensively used in folk medicine. In this regard, the aim of this study was to investigate the possible analgesic, anti-inflammatory and central nervous system (CNS) depressant activities of ethanol, aqueous, chloroform and petroleum ether extracts of D. falcata (Linn.) leaves (AEDFL, EEDFL, CEDFL and PEDFL) on Swiss albino mice. The analgesic activity was determined by tail immersion and acetic acid induced writhing methods at a dose of 50, 100 and 200 mg/kg, p.o. using morphine sulfate as a standard drug at a dose of 5mg/kg of body weight. Carrageenan-induced paw edema model was applied to find out anti-inflammatory potential at the same doses of analgesic activity. Here ibuprofen was treated as a standard drug at 10mg/kg body weight. The CNS depressant effect of the extracts were evaluated by using open field and hole cross tests. All the extracts exhibited significant (P b < 0.01, P a < 0.001) analgesic, antiinflammatory and CNS depressant effects at dose dependant manner. Petroleum ether extracts (PEDFL) showed maximum analgesic effect (77.45% inhibition of abdominal writhing and 82.12% elongation of tail withdrawal time) at 200mg/kg dose. Moreover, the highest anti-inflammatory potential (90.24% inhibition of paw edema volume) was showed by petroleum ether extract at 200mg/kg dose. On the other hand, ethanol extract (EEDFL) proved to have significant (97.33% and 85.91% inhibition of locomotion in open field and