Studies in anti-sickling and antioxidant properties of Canna indica, Pergularia daemia and Parquetina nigrescens leaves

Abstract

This research focused on investigating the in-vitro anti-sickling and antioxidant activities of Canna indica, Pergularia daemia and Parquetina nigrescens. The plant materials were air-dried, pulverized, extracted with analytical-grade methanol, filtered and concentrated under reduced pressure using a rotary evaporator at 50^oC. The spectrophotometric analysis for antioxidants was carried out at different concentrations of the plant extracts. The anti-sickling property of the methanol extract of the three plants were investigated in HbSS in vitro by 2% sodium metabisulphite assay. The DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging test was used to evaluate the three plant extracts' capacity to function as antioxidants. The results obtained indicated that Parquetina nigrescens gave the lowest DPPH scavenging effect with the percentage inhibition of 30% at 0.2mg/ml compared to the standard vitamin C giving 85% at the same dose (0.2mg/ml),while the methanol extract of Canna indica leaves at high dose (250mg/ml) did not cause a significant reduction in the number of sickle cell but Pergularia daemia at the same dose (250mg/ml) led to a marked decrease in the number of sickled erythrocytes from 10% at the initial time of the experiment to 2% during the 90mins duration. This study reveals that Pergularia daemia have antisicking potentials which may also be linked to its antioxidant property.