Assessment of herbal products used in Egypt for improvement of hepatic disorders / Marwa Yousry Moustafa Issa ; Supervised Soheir M. Elzalabani , Hesham I. Elaskary , Miriam F. Yousif

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Pharmacy - Department of Pharmacognosy

Three herbal products viz., linseed, fenugreek and rosemary used, in folk medicine, as hepatoprotective were selected. Their systematic classification was mentioned and the macro and micromorphological features of the seeds of linseed and fenugreek as well as the leaves of rosemary were examined. In addition, the pharmacopoeial constants, nutritional values and mineral values of all samples. The samples were defatted and extracted with ethanol and the solvent was evaporated. In case of linseed the ethanol extract was hydrolysed for isolation of its active lignans. While, in case of fenugreek seeds, the extract was fractionated with solvent of increasing polarity The fixed oil of linseed, fenugreek decoction and volatile oil of rosemary leaves were also prepared. The ability of the tested samples to protect against CCl4-induced hepatotoxicity was investigated in vitro by measuring some biochemicals parameters. The protective effect was indicated by decrease of AST and ALT enymes as well as increase of SOD and GSH. AST and ALT enymes total bilirubin level were also measured in vivo. In addition, the histological features of the isolated injured liver tissues were investigated. Investigation of the cytotoxic activity of the ethanol extracts and their active fractions were inspected. The hepatoprotective activity revealed that linseed alkaline hydrolysate, n-butanol fraction of fenugreek and methylene chloride fraction of rosemary leaves were the most active and obtained in the largest yield. Therefore they were selected for further investigation

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