Abstract
Article history: Received on: 24/07/2015 Revised on: 16/08/2015 Accepted on: 16/09/2015 Available online: 12/11/2015 Calligonum polygonoides L. subsp. comosum; locally known as “arta”, is tall woody shrub, perennial desert plant. TLC screening, estrogenic and antimicrobial activities of different fractions of hydroalcoholic extract of the leaves; n-hexane, CH2Cl2, EtOAc and n-BuOH, were studied in order to find the correlation between the phytoconstituents and the biological activity. Estrogenic activity was studied in immature ovariectomized female Wistar rats by oral administration of 75 and 150 mg extract/kg body weight for seven days using 1 μg estradiol/rat/day as positive control. The antimicrobial activity against Aspergillus fumigatus, Candida albicans, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumonia was carried out using agar diffusion method with determination of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). The CH2Cl2 fraction showed significant estrogenic and antimicrobial activity by significantly increasing uterine weight and low MIC values for all tested microorganisms ranging from 0.03 and 3.9 mg/mL. The n-hexane fraction showed mainly the presence of sterols and/or triterpenoids. The EtOAc and n-BuOH fractions were the richest in flavonoids while that of methylene chloride was found to contain both classes of chemical compounds. In conclusion; flavonoids, sterols and/or triterpenes exhibit synergistic effect to the antimicrobial and estrogenic activity of Calligonum polygonoides leaves.
Highlights
The genus Calligonum comprising about 80 species; is widely distributed in North Africa, South Europe, and West and Central Asia
Phytochemical screening of the plant leaves extract showed that carbohydrates and/or glycosides, tannins, free and combined flavonoids, as well as sterols and/or triterpenes are present in the leaves while steam volatile substances, saponin, alkaloids and/or nitrogenous bases, cardiac glycosides, free and combined anthraquinones were absent
Acute oral toxicity No signs of toxicity or mortality were recorded in mice following single administration of all of the tested fractions of C. polygonoides leaves at oral doses up to 2.5 g/kg
Summary
The genus Calligonum (family Polygonaceae) comprising about 80 species; is widely distributed in North Africa, South Europe, and West and Central Asia. In the Saharan areas, Calligonum species are dominant perennial shrubs and trees in active sand dunes and in stabilized sand fields. They can tolerate extreme drought conditions by the loss of leaves and branches during the driest months (Gouja et al, 2014). Comosum; locally known as “arach”, “abal” or “arta”, is a tall woody perennial desert shrub. Ahmed et al / Journal of Applied Pharmaceutical Science 5 (Suppl 3); 2015: 022-026. It was interesting to screen different extractives of C. polygonoides leaves growing in Egypt for its estrogenic and antimicrobial activities
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