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The in vitro antimutagenic activity of Triphala — an Indian herbal drug

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0278-6915(01)00101-6Get rights and content

Abstract

A study to evaluate an antimutagenic potential of water, chloroform and acetone extracts of Triphala has been made in an Ames histidine reversion assay using TA98 and TA100 tester strains of Salmonella typhimurium against the direct-acting mutagens, 4-nitro-o-phenylenediamine (NPD) and sodium azide, and the indirect-acting promutagen, 2-aminofluorene (2AF), in the presence of phenobarbitone-induced rat hepatic S9. A combination drug ‘Triphala’ — a composite mixture of Terminalia bellerica, T. chebula and Emblica officinalis, has been used in traditional system of medicine for the treatment of many malaises, such as heart ailments and hepatic diseases. The drug was sequentially extracted with water, acetone and chloroform at room temperature. The study revealed that water extract was ineffective in reducing the revertants induced by the mutagens. The results with chloroform and acetone extracts showed inhibition of mutagenicity induced by both direct and S9-dependent mutagens. A significant inhibition of 98.7% was observed with acetone extract against the revertants induced by S9-dependent mutagen, 2AF, in co-incubation mode of treatment. Various spectroscopic techniques, namely 1H-NMR, normal 13C-NMR, distortionless enhancement by polarization transfer (DEPT-90 and DEPT-135), UV and IR, are under way to identify the polyphenolic compounds from an acetone extract.

Introduction

According to Doll and Peto (1981), dietary factors contribute to one-third of annual cancer related deaths in United States. While the traditional Western diet is believed to cause an increased lifetime risk of cancer, the diets high in plant-derived foods offer a protective effect (Balentine et al., 1999, Eastwood, 1999, Lee, 1999). Accordingly, as a part of an overall strategy geared towards the defeat of cancer, it is now apparent that the identification and characterization of dietary phytochemicals can play an integral role. The use of medicinal plants or their active principles in modern medicine for the prevention and/or treatment of chronic diseases suffers from a lack of scientific evidence, and only very few medicinal plants have attracted the interest of scientists. Recent research in this area has highlighted the significance of secondary plant metabolites which are antimutagenic/anticarcinogenic and are the important constituents of many medicinal plants. Many botanists and biologists mapped out specific compounds, for example polyphenols, triterpenoids and many other secondary metabolites, that have anticancer/antimutagenic properties (Amonkar et al., 1989, Huang et al., 1992, Nagabhushan et al., 1992, Siglin et al., 1995, Oetari et al., 1996, Wang et al., 1996, Hollman and Katan, 1999, Kuroda and Hara, 1999, Shih et al., 2000). Triphala, which is a combination of three plants, namely Terminalia chebula, T. bellerica and Emblica officinalis, has been used extensively as a drug against a number of diseases (Awasthi and Nath, 1968, Ram Chandra Reddy et al., 1990). In the present study, we report the antimutagenic effect of the polyphenolic fractions isolated from Triphala.

Section snippets

Preparation of extracts

The finely powdered Triphala was procured from Dabur India Ltd (Daburgram, Bihar, India). It is a mixture of Terminalia bellerica, T. chebula and Emblica officinalis in equal proportions. A weighed amount of the drug was extracted with water in a flask at room temperature. The flask was kept on a shaker for 6–7 h. The water was then distilled off to obtain a water extract. The residue left after water extraction was dried and then extracted with acetone. Acetone was distilled off to obtain an

Results and discussion

The impact of acetone and chloroform extracts on the histidine revertants induced by direct and S9 dependent mutagens is presented in Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, Table 4 and Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4, Fig. 5. Water extract did not show significant inhibition of the revertants (data not shown). It was noticed that acetone and chloroform extracts exerted significant inhibition against tester strains TA98 and TA100 of S. typhimurium. Among the two extracts, acetone extract showed maximum inhibition of

Conclusions

This study supports the contention that traditional medicines remain a valuable resource in the potential discovery of natural product pharmaceuticals. A remarkable antimutagenic activity exhibited by ‘Triphala’ provides a scientific validation for the popular use of this drug and helped us in further work on isolation and identification of active compounds.

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