ANTI-ULCERATIVE COLITIS ACTIVITY OF EXTRACTS AND VOLATILE OILS FROM THREE OCIMUM SPECIES

El-Meligy, Reham M.; Awaad, Amani S.; Hegazy, Rehab R.; Al-Motrai, Nouf; Alqasoumi, Salah I.

doi:10.21608/ejdr.2025.385678.1208

ANTI-ULCERATIVE COLITIS ACTIVITY OF EXTRACTS AND VOLATILE OILS FROM THREE OCIMUM SPECIES

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Department of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Desert Research Center, Cairo, Egypt

² Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Prince Sattam Bin Abdul Aziz University, Al-Kharj, KSA

³ Department of Pharmacology, Medical Division, National Research Centre, Giza, Egypt

⁴ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, KSA

⁵ Department of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, KSA

10.21608/ejdr.2025.385678.1208

Abstract

The current study was designed to explore the potential of three Ocimum species; Ocimum americanum, Ocimum basilicum and Ocimum basilicum var. thyrsiflora, Family Lamiaceae as anti-ulcerative colitis agents. Both Alcohol and total phenolic extracts (200 and 400 mg/kg) in addition to volatile oil (50 mg/kg) of each evaluated plant were administrated orally to colitis rats (4% acetic acid) for 5 consecutive days. Different anti-ulcerative colitis potentials were observed for the explored extracts in a dose dependent manner. All investigated alcohol and total phenolic extracts at dose 400 mg/kg produced similar activity as dexamethasone (0.1 mg/kg), the standard drug. For O. americanum, O. basilicum and O. basilicum var. thyrsiflora the percent protection from control colitis were 65.92, 67.2 and 66.51%, respectively for alcohol extracts and 58.20, 60.11 and 59.15%, respectively for total phenolic extracts, while it was 71.54% for dexamethasone. Volatile oils unlikely exhibit little capacities (5.95, 6.90 and 6.27%). The current results proposed that the investigated extracts well inhibited lipid peroxidation induced by acetic acid and provide defensive effects against UC, through significant decline in the raised colonic malondialdehyde (MDA) content ranged from 42.49 to 47.05% change of control colitis. In addition to a significant reduction in the elevated level of plasma TNF-alpha that could explain the anti-ulcerative colitis potentials of these extracts. The total alcohol extracts of the three species were found harmless up to 4000 mg/kg and showed no side effects on both functions of liver and kidney after oral administrated (400 mg/kg) for 14 successive days.

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