RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: Juglans regia L. is largely used by diabetic population, but its bark is scarcely investigated. The major aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the hydro-methanolic extract and fractions of J. regia L. barks on normoglycemic and diabetic rats through the evaluation of some biochemical parameters. METHODS: Phenolic enriched extracts were investigated for their effect on normoglycemic and diabetic rats through the determination of fasting blood glucose levels in short- and long-term. As well as plasma total cholesterol, triglycerides, insulin, urea, creatinine, alanine amino transferase (ALT) and aspartate amino transferase (AST) levels were measured after 28 days of treatment. Furthermore, the phytochemical composition was assessed by standard methods. RESULTS: Among the different extracts tested, the n-Butanol fraction presented the highest amounts of total phenolic, total flavonoids and flavonol contents (745 ± 0.6 mg GAE g-1, 162 ± 0.78 mg CE g-1 and 56.02 ± 0.92 mg QE g-1, respectively) and it found to be the most effective to decrease plasma total cholesterol, triglycerides and FGLs in treated diabetic rats in both short- and long-term treatment, mainly the dose 200 mg/kg after 28 days of treatment which found to be more effective than glibenclamide. This fraction also revealed pronounced improvement in liver and renal profiles. CONCLUSIONS: J. regia L. barks had an important antidiabetic role similar to the reference glibenclamide. This may be related to the high contents of phenolic compounds.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: In order to find new bioactive natural products, the antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of essential oil components extracted from the separated organs of the Algerian medicinal and aromatic plant Daucus muricatus L. were studied. RESULTS: The chemical composition of essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation (HD) was investigated using Gas Chromatography-Retention Indices (GC-RI) and GC-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). Two types of essential oils were produced by D. muricatus: (i) The oil from roots is mainly composed by nonterpenic oxygenated compounds (59.8 g/100 g), and (ii) the aerial part oils (i.e., the leaves, stems, flowers, and umbels) was mainly composed by terpenic hydrocarbon compounds (62.3-72.2 g/100 g). The chemical composition of the volatile fraction isolated from different organs of Daucus muricatus were studied by HS-SPME/GC-RI and GC-MS after optimization of Solid Phase MicroExtraction parameters. For all organs studied, the main volatiles emitted by the plant were hydrocarbon compounds (60.7-82.2 g/100 g). Only quantitative differences between the volatiles of the separated organs studied were observed. In addition, the activity of the oil of D. muricatus against eight bacterial strains and one yeast was investigated. The oil from roots revealed active against S. aureus, while the essential oil obtained from the aerial parts was active against the yeast C. albicans. CONCLUSIONS: Daucus muricatus essential oil seems be a promising source of natural products with potential antimicrobial activity.
