General Pharmacology: The Vascular System
General PapersEffect of Vernonia cinerea Less Flower Extract in Adjuvant-Induced Arthritis
Introduction
Vernonia cinerea (Asteraceae, Less), an annual herb, is reported to have many medicinal properties. Its flowers are useful in treating conjunctivitis and rheumatism. Every part of the plant can be used medicinally (Chopra et al., 1985; Kirtikar and Basu 1975, Mishra et al. 1984).
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic syndrome characterized by nonspecific, usually symmetric, inflammation of the peripheral joints. The synovial membrane and the synovial joints are susceptible to inflammation and other joint diseases which involve an inflammatory process (Dieppe and Calvert, 1983). Rat model, adjuvant-induced arthritis bears a close resemblance to RA in humans (Rainsford, 1982).
The present study investigates the anti-inflammatory property of the flower extract of V. cinerea in adjuvant-induced arthritis in rats. This anti-inflammatory property was assessed by measuring the changes in paw volume, body weight, tissue weight, histopathology and assay of tissue and serum enzymes.
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Plant material and drug extraction
The flowers from the herbal plant V. cinerea (Asteraceae, Less) were obtained from local gardens. The plant was authenticated by Prof. C. R. Dhanyakumar (Government Arts College, Chennai). The flowers were air dried and made into a powder by the use of a ball mill. The powdered flowers (100 g) were placed in the thimble of a Soxhlet extraction apparatus and extracted with refluxing 80% ethanol (3×200 ml) for 6 hr. The combined extracts were filtered, concentrated in vacuo at 40°C and the
Phytochemical studies
Phytochemical studies performed on the flower extract showed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, carbohydrates, proteins, phenols, steroids and tannins (Table 1).
Body weight, paw volume and tissue weight changes
Growth of arthritic rats was retarded compared with control rats. Body weights of treated adjuvant rats, however, increased significantly (Fig. 2). The paw volume in adjuvant-induced rats showed an increase in ankle diameter from day 4 and increased up to day 19, as shown in Figure 3. The flower-extract-treated animals
Discussion
The present study shows that the adverse physical, biochemical and histopathological changes in arthritic animals were reversed to a considerable extent by oral administration of V. cinerea flower extract. Hence, there is evidence for its anti-inflammatory activity. Changes in body weight are shown in Figure 2, and were found to occur in response to the incidence and severity of arthritis. The loss in body weight has also been reported in arthritic rats (Walz et al., 1971).
The soft swelling
Summary
The effect of oral administration of V. cinerea flower extract was studied in adjuvant-induced rats to assess its anti-inflammatory property. Adjuvant arthritis was induced by intradermal injection of CFA. During the experimental period, changes in body weight, paw volume and organ weight were noted. An increase in paw volume in the diseased state was associated with infiltration of granulocytes and monocytes in the periarticular tissue. Spleen weight was increased in arthritic rats and there
Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. Sundarajan, Department of Pathology, Veterinary College, Madras, for helping us to carry out histopathological studies. One of the authors (T. Geetha) gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi.
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