European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

IN-VITRO HEMOLYTIC ACTIVITY OF SAPONIN RICH MEDICINAL PLANTS FROM ERITREA

Leah Ghebreberhan Mehretab, Liya Abraham Kidane, John Issac and Atul Kaushik*

ABSTRACT

Traditional medicine is practiced in Eritrea for a number of medical cases since ancient times. Toxicity of the phyto constituents plays a key role during drug designing. Medicinal plants (Commicarpus pedunculosis, Steganotaenia araliaceae, Boscia angustifolia, Solanum incanum, and Calpurnia aurea) are being used as a non standardized material and must be assessed for any toxic effects as they are rich in various types of phytoconstituents like Saponins. Saponins are natural glycosides which show pharmacological properties including hemolytic activity. This study was performed to identify the saponin’s level and unwanted toxic effects (hemolytic activity) of traditional medicinal plants used for several treatments. The Phytochemical investigation, foam test, and hemolytic assay, was evaluated for all the plant extracts. Solanam incanum was found very high Fh value (20mm) among all the plants used in the present study. While Boscia angustifolia showed very less Fh value (10mm). All the extract showed hemolysis between 9.0 to 20.2 % at various dose level. The correlations between the general saponins structure and the toxicity of both steroid and tri-terpenoid saponins have been described. All the extracts were found suitable for the treatment as they showed negligible hemolytic effect against erythrocytes. It reflects a low toxicityand leadsthe isolation, the purification, the elucidation and pharmacological evaluation of saponins present in the extracts. These observations will stimulate further research in the field of phytochemistry and also in clinical application of the phytochemical constituents of selected plants for the present study.

Keywords: Commicarpus pedunculosis, Steganotaenia araliaceae, Boscia angustifolia, Solanum incanum and Calpurnia aurea.