Hepatoprotective and antioxidant activity of standardized herbal extracts.
BACKGROUND
Phyllanthus emblica, Camellia sinensis, Mangifera indica, Punica granatum, and Acacia catechu have been shown to possess widespread pharmacological application against multitude of diseases namely cancer, diabetes, liver disorders, and oxidative stress.


OBJECTIVE
We evaluated the hepatoprotective activity of the standardized herbal extracts against tert-butyl hydroperoxide (t-BH) induced toxicity and their mechanism of hepatoprotective action in human hepatocarcinoma cells (HepG2 cell line).


METHODS
The hepatoprotective activity was studied by observing the effect of these herbal extracts on t-BH induced reduction in cell viability of HepG2 cells. In addition, the reducing power of the extracts and their ability to scavenge free radicals were evaluated using two antioxidant assay systems: cell free [oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), and [2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonicacid)] (ABTS)] and cell based [cellular antioxidant activity (CAA)].


CONCLUSIONS
The results obtained showed that these extracts possess significant hepatoprotective activity. This may indicate that the plant extracts contain compounds, which can remove toxic metabolites following t-BH induced toxicity. The extracts exhibited significant antioxidant property as evident by the Trolox values and effective scavenging of DPPH and ABTS radicals. The extracts also demonstrated inhibition of AAPH-induced fluorescence in HepG2 cells. These results indicate the ability of the plant extracts to protect the liver cells from chemical-induced damage, which might be correlated to their radical scavenging potential.


CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrates that these extracts have potential hepatoprotective activity which is mainly attributed to the antioxidant potential, which might occur by reduction of lipid peroxidation and cellular damage.
R and D Centre, Natural Remedies Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore, India.
Bhaskarmurthy Deepak
BD
Hiraganahalli
Velusami Chandrasekaran
VC
Chinampudur
Shekhar
S
Dethe
Deepak
D
Mundkinajeddu
Manoj Kumar
MK
Pandre
Jaya
J
Balachandran
Amit
A
Agarwal