Comparative DNA profiling, phytochemical investigation, and biological evaluation of two Ficus species growing in Egypt
1, 2, 3, 2★, 3, 2★ Corresponding author
- 1Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy Cairo University, Cairo 11562
- 2Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef,62514
- 3National Research Centre, Dokki, Cairo 12622, Egypt
CORRESPONDENCE
Hossam M. Hassan
Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef,62514
Volume 5, Issue 4 · pp. 291-299 · 2013 · DOI: 10.4103/0974-8490.118815
ABSTRACT
A comparison between two Ficus species, cultivated in Egypt, was carried out in this study. Their DNA analysis revealed that they are not closely related. The pharmacopoeial constants of the leaves showed higher total ash and acid insoluble ash in F. lyrata than in F. platypoda. The other parameters were close in both species. Preliminary phytochemical screening revealed the presence of carbohydrate and/or glycosides, tannins, flavonoids, sterols, and triterpenes in their leaves and was detected in traces in their stems. Saponification of n-hexane extract of the leaves yielded 46% and 74.8% for the unsaponifiable matters and 20% and 15% for the fatty acids for F. platypoda and F. lyrata, respectively. n-Docosane (21.69%) and n-heptacosane (33.77%) were the major hydrocarbons in F. platypoda and F. lyrata, respectively. b-Sitosterol was the main sterol, palmitic (22.07%) and carboceric (35.72%) acids were the major identified saturated fatty acids in both species, while linoleic acid was the main unsaturated fatty acid (18.66% and 16.7%) in both species, respectively. The acute toxicity study revealed that the two species were safe up to 2 g/kg. The antioxidant activity using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay and pyrogallol as the standard was more significant for F. platypoda (232.6 μg/ml) than for F. lyrata, (790.9 μg/ml). The oral antihyperglycemic activity in diabetic rats using alloxan revealed that the 80% ethanolic extract of the leaves of F. platypoda was more active than that of the leaves of F. lyrata in decreasing the blood glucose level at 200 mg/kg/ day (107.9 ± 5.817, 127.2 ± 4.359) and 400 mg/kg/day (64.11 ± 4.358, 127.7 ± 6.889), respectively, when compared with the diabetic control gliclazide (172.3 ± 2.089). The results of this study provide evidence that the two Ficus species have antioxidant and antihyperglycemic activity, in the order F. platypoda and then F. lyrata
KEYWORDS
REFERENCES
As publishedShowing references and in-text citations exactly as published.
Cite this article
SELECT FORMAT
El-Kashoury, E. A., Hetta, M. H., Yassin, N. Z., Hassan, H. M., El-Awdan, S. A., & Afifi, N. I. (2013). Comparative DNA profiling, phytochemical investigation, and biological evaluation of two Ficus species growing in Egypt. Pharmacognosy Research, 5(4), 291-299. https://doi.org/10.4103/0974-8490.118815
Copyright and licence
© 2013 Author(s)
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0