Bioactivity guided quantification of leaf extracts of Psoralea corylifolia Linn

Psoralea corylifolia, source of flavonoids is an important medicinal plant [1,2]. The present study was an attempt to explore the hepatoprotective potential of aqueous and alcoholic leaf extracts of the plant against a standard drug Silymarin [3]. The hepatotoxic and hepatoprotective animal model was developed to evaluate the activity. Different stress related enzymes: SGOT, SGPT, APT and total protein in serum of diseased and protected animals were assessed by standard methods. The protein expression at various stages of protection was analysed by using SDS-PAGE. Histopathological examination of liver of diseased and protected animals was carried out to support findings showing encouraging results especially of ethanolic extract from leaves.

The biochemical analysis of enzymes revealed that there is an increase in SGOT, SGPT and APT concentration in diseased condition while in case of protection by the plant extracts, the enzyme concentration is decreased as compared to diseased group.

Protein expression analysis by 1D SDS-PAGE on treated animal exhibited either up regulation or down regulation in normal, diseased and protected conditions. In this study it showed that various proteins in serum are down regulated in diseased condition. A successful hepatotoxicity model was developed by using AAF. The protein expression analysis of diseased group revealed a marked down regulation of 20 kDa band. The protein expression analysis of protection group revealed an up regulation of 66–20kDa proteins. Chemical constituents were quantified by HPTLC in the leaves of P. corylifolia on the basis of bioactivity guided principle [4]. The results obtained clearly indicate the presence of daidzein (5.52%) and traces of psoralen in the ethanolic extract of leaves. The promising hepatoprote ctive activity may lead to the isolation of chemically defined active compounds of modern medicine [5].

References: 1. Bhalla, V.K. et al. (1968) Tetrahedron Lett. 20: 2401–2406. 2. Hsu, Y-T. et al. (2001)J. Chrom. Sci. 39: 441–444. 3. Cho, H. et al. (2001) Planta Med. 67:750–751. 4. Butler, M.S. (2004)J. Nat. Prod. 67:2141–2153. 5. Hostettmann, K. et al. (1997) Pharm. Ind. 59:339–347.