Lannea acida A. Rich. (Anacardiaceae) Ethanol Extract Exhibits Estrogenic Effects and Prevents Bone Loss in an Ovariectomized Rat Model of Osteoporosis

Abstract

Phytoestrogens have been shown to prevent postmenopausal osteoporosis. Lannea acida is a medicinal plant traditionally used in Cameroon to treat infertility, gynaecological complaints, and rheumatism. These uses prompted us to evaluate estrogenic activity of Lannea acida bark ethanolic extract and its antiosteoporotic potential in ovariectomized Wistar rats. In vitro, the E-screen assay was used to assess the ability of L. acida extract to induce MCF-7 cells proliferation. In vivo, a 3-day uterotrophic assay and a 12-week oral treatment in ovariectomized adult rats were carried out to evaluate the ability of L. acida extract to prevent bone mass loss. L. acida extract induced MCF-7 cell proliferation. In vivo, it significantly increased the uterine wet weight, uterine and vaginal epithelial heights, and mammary glands differentiation. At 200 mg/kg, a long-term treatment with the extract prevented body weight gain (p < 0.05) and loss of bone mass and/or density (p < 0.05) induced by ovariectomy. Also, a significant (p < 0.001) decrease of alkaline phosphatase activity was observed with 50 mg/kg. L. acida extract improved bone microarchitecture and could restore normal bone mineralization by increasing the inorganic phosphorus and calcium level in bone. These findings provide evidence that Lannea acida is a potential alternative for the prevention of postmenopausal osteoporosis.

Lannea Acida: A Review of Its Medicinal Uses and Phytochemistry and Pharmacological Properties

“…Kone et al [24] [67]. These antibacterial activities exhibited by the extracts of L. acida support the traditional usage of the species as remedy for bacterial pathogens causing diarrhea [24,25,27,34,37,39,41], dysentery [25,34,38,40], furuncle [28], gonorrhea [24], microbial infections on burns and wounds [3,22,23], skin infections [36], stomach ache [24,28,36,38,39,40], and toothache [13,26].…”

“…Flavonoids are characterized by several pharmacological properties, for example, irisolidone 4 is known to possess anti-Helicobacter pylori activities [53], inhibition of prostaglandin E2 production [54], hepatoprotective activities [55,56], cancer chemopreventive activities [57], estrogenic activities [58], inhibitory effect of JC1 virus gene expression [59], anti-inflammatory activities [60,61], and protective properties against hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) [62]. Other phytochemical compounds identified from the bark and stem bark of L. acida include alkaloids, cardiac glycosides, phenols, saponins, steroids, tannins, and terpenoids [37,41,[63][64][65]. Leung et al [66] analyzed the calcium, carbohydrates, energy, fat, fiber, phosphorous, and protein content of L. acida leaves as a means of estimating the quality of leaves as vegetable sources ( Table 2).…”

“…The pharmacological activities exhibited by L. acida extracts include the following: Anthelmintic [25], antibacterial [24,67], antidiarrheal [37], anti-inflammatory [64], antimycobacterial [34], antioxidant [65,67], estrogenic [41], fertility [68], hyaluronidase [48,69], phospholipase A 2 [48,69], proteolytic [48,69], and vibriocidal [70] activities.…”

“…The oral administration of 200 mg/kg of the extracts exhibited inhibition against castor oil-induced diarrhea in rats [37]. These results show that L. acida extracts have potential in the management of gastrointestinal problems such as abdominal bloating, constipation, diarrhea, dysentery, and stomach ache [24,25,27,28,34,[36][37][38][39][40][41]. Research by Stark et al [71] and Maroyi [72] showed that medicinal plants have potential in the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders and the pain that is associated with the disorders.…”

“…The extract exhibited the highest percentage scavenging activity of 90% at a concentration of 20 mg/mL which was comparable to scavenging activity exhibited by ascorbic acid, although the scavenging activity of the control was relatively more pronounced than that of the extract at 2.5 mg/mL, 5 mg/mL, and 10 mg/mL [65]. The antioxidant activities exhibited by L. acida extracts are probably due to flavonoids and phenolics that have been identified from the species [41,51,52,65,67], and flavonoids and phenolics are known to exhibit antioxidant properties [73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81].…”