Introduction
Herbal products have been widely used for the treatment of diseases throughout the ages. In this research, we investigated antioxidant, antibacterial, anti-adipogenic, and anti-inflammatory activities of methanolic extracts of five ethnomedicinally important plants; namely,
Alnus nepalensis
,
Dryopteris sparsa
,
Artocarpus lacucha
,
Litsea monopetala
, and
Lyonia ovalifolia
.
Methods
We investigated the DPPH free radical scavenging potential, sensitivity of selected bacterial strains towards the extracts using a disc diffusion assay, anti-inflammatory activity in RAW-264.7 cells, and anti-adipogenic activity by the ORO assay in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes.
Results and discussion
The extract of
A. nepalensis
showed significant antioxidant activity (IC
50
=4.838
µ
g/mL), followed by
A. lacucha
,
L. monopetala
, and
L. ovalifolia
, exhibiting comparable IC
50
values to that of ascorbic acid (IC
50
=5.063
µ
g/mL).
Alnus nepalensis
also showed good antibacterial activity in disc diffusion methods, with remarkable zones of inhibition in
A. baumannii
(14.66 mm) and
P. mirabilis
(15.50 mm) bacterial species. In addition,
A. nepalensis
was found to increase adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 cells, evidenced by increased lipid deposition in differentiated 3T3-L1 cells. A similar pattern of increased adipogenesis was observed on treatment with
L. ovalifolia
extracts. On the other hand,
A. lacucha
effectively reduced lipid deposition in 3T3-L1 cells at 100
µ
g/mL (75.18±6.42%) by inhibiting adipogenesis, showing its potential use in the management of obesity. Furthermore,
A. lacucha
100 µg/mL (15.91±0.277
µ
M) and
L. monopetala
75
µ
g/mL (12.52±0.05
µ
M) and 100 µg/mL (11.77±0.33
µ
M) significantly inhibited LPS-induced nitric oxide production in RAW 264.7 cells. Also,
A. nepalensis
and
L. ovalifolia
inhibited NO production significantly, endorsing their anti-inflammatory potential.
Conclusion
The findings from these in-vitro studies suggest that the selected five plants possess remarkable antioxidant, antibacterial, anti-adipogenic, and anti-inflammatory activities. This study opens the door to conduct further advanced in-vivo experiments to find possible le...