The effects of the ethanol extract of Cordia myxa leaves on the cognitive function in mice.

BACKGROUND: Cordia myxa L. (Boraginaceae) is widely distributed in tropical regions and it's fruits, leaves and stem bark have been utilized in folk medicine for treating trypanosomiasis caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. A population-based study showed that T. cruzi infection is associated with cognitive impairments. Therefore, if C. myxa has ameliorating activities on cognitive function, it would be useful for both T. cruzi infection and cognitive impairments. METHODS: In this study, we evaluated the effects of an ethanol extract of leaves of C. myxa (ELCM) on memory impairments and sensorimotor gating deficits in mice. The phosphorylation level of protein was observed by the Western blot analysis. RESULTS: The administration of ELCM significantly attenuated scopolamine-induced cognitive dysfunction in mice, as measured by passive avoidance test and novel object recognition test. Additionally, in the acoustic startle response test, we observed that the administration of ELCM ameliorated MK-801-induced prepulse inhibition deficits. We found that these behavioral outcomes were related with increased levels of phosphorylation phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K), protein kinase B (Akt) and glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK-3ß) in the cortex and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) in the hippocampus by western blot analysis. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that ELCM would be a potential candidate for treating cognitive dysfunction and sensorimotor gating deficits observed in individuals with neurodegenerative diseases.

Activity evaluation on Ribes species, traditionally used to speed up healing of wounds: With special focus on Ribes nigrum.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ribes species are usually evergreen shrubs, represented by eight species in Turkey. Although they are known for their fruits with commercial importance, their leaves have been used as folk remedy in various areas in Turkey by rural population owing to their wound healing potential. AIM OF THE STUDY: In the present study we aimed to assess the wound healing activity of the leaves of Ribes species growing in Turkey, namely, Ribes alpinum L., R. anatolica Behçet, R. petraeum Wulfen, R. multiflorum Kit. ex Romer & Schultes, R. nigrum L., R. orientale Desf., R. rubrum L., R. uva-crispa L. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Wounds were surgically induced on the dorsal parts of the rats and mice. Prepared herbal ointments were topically applied onto the wounds once daily. The effects of the extracts were evaluated by measuring the breaking strength and percentage of reduction in wounded area by comparing the results with the registered reference ointment, FITO Krem®. Histopathological and antioxidant assays were also conducted. Since, R. nigrum was determined to be the most active species, we further investigated the wound healing potential of the subextracts of the methanol extract of R. nigrum leaves. RESULTS: R. nigrum and R. multiflorum extracts significantly increased wound breaking strength. Significant reduction in the areas was determined for the wounded tissues treated with the ointments of R. nigrum and R. multiflorum extracts. Oxidative Stress Index was found to be lowest for R. orientale, R. nigrum and R. multiflorum. Among the subextracts of R. nigrum, ethyl acetate subextract was found to have promising effect. CONCLUSIONS: Methanol extracts of leaves of R. nigrum and R. multiflorum demonstrated significant wound healing effect. We can suggest that ethyl acetate subextract of R. nigrum may be a potential candidate to be used for the development of a wound healing agent.

Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography for the Simultaneous Quantification of Rutin and Chlorogenic Acid in Leaves of Ribes L. Species by Conventional and Chemometric Calibration Approaches.

A new ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) using conventional and chemometric calibrations was improved for the simultaneous estimation of chlorogenic acid (CA) and rutin (RUT) in leaves of Ribes L. species (R. rubrum, R. biebersteinii, R. nigrum, R. uva-crispa, R. alpinum, R. orientale, R. multiflorum and R. anatolica). The UPLC separation for CA and RUT in samples were performed on a Waters UPLC BEH phenyl column (100 mm × 1.0 mm i.d., 1.7 µm) and mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 0.1 M formic acid buffer, pH = 3.77 (15:85, v/v) containing 1.0 mL triethylamine in 1,000 mL mobile phase. Multi-wavelength UPLC chromatograms of CA and RUT in calibration and plant samples were obtained by the photodiode array (PDA) detection at the wavelength set from 290 to 360 nm with the interval of Δλ = 10 nm. Conventional UPLC-single and chemometric calibrations were subjected to the analysis of the related compounds. By using UPLC data, conventional and chemometric calibrations in the linear concentration range between 2.5 and 40.0 µg/mL for all compounds were applied for the simultaneous quantitative analysis of CA and RUT in plant samples of seven different Ribes species.