IN VIVO ANALGESIC AND ANTI-INFLAMMATORY EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT EXTRACTS OF ELEPHANTOPUS SCABER LINN

Anusree S.*, Rakesh Kumar Jat and Sheeba Jasmine T. S.

ABSTRACT

Natural products play a crucial role in the pharmaceutical field, as either naturally occurring molecules or their derivatives are the sources of considerable number of modern therapeutic agents. With this view, the plant Elephantopus scaber was selected for our research. As the continuation of our previous effort, the present study was focused on the in vivo evaluation of analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity of ethyl acetate and methanol extract of E. scaber. Initially, acute toxicity of the extracts was evaluated and the effective dose (ED50) was fixed. Anti-inflammatory evaluation was done in the experimental animals with paw oedema induced by carrageenan. In vivo analgesic evaluation was done by the acetic acid induced writhing inhibition method. For these evaluations, healthy, young, adult Swiss albino mice of both sexes were used. Two doses of test extracts, low dose and high dose (200 and 400mg.kg-1) were subjected to the evaluation. In these evaluations, the methanol extract showed a significant result. Further studies of this extract in future may yield significant results that will be useful for the development of new chemotherapeutic agents.

Keywords: Elephantopus scaber extracts, in vivo analgesic activity, in vivo anti-inflammatory activity.