Free radical scavenging potential and HPTLC analysis of Indigofera tinctoria linn(Fabaceae)

The objective of this study was to evaluate the free radical scavenging potential and high performance thin layer chromatography （HPTLC） fingerprinting of Indigofem tinctoria （I. tinctoria）, Phytochemical analysis was carried out using standard methods, and free radical scavenging activity of the plant was determined using 2,2-diphenyl-l-picrylhydrazy （DPPH）, nitric oxide （NO） and superoxide anion （O2-） radical scavenging capacities. HPTLC plate was kept in CAMAG TLC Scanner 3 and the Rf values at fin- gerprint data were recorded by WlNCATS software, Aqueous extract of I. tinctoria reliably showed the total phenolics （267.2 ± 2.42 mg/g）, flavonoids （75.43 ± 3.36 mg/g） and antioxidants （349.11 ±8.04 mg/g）. The extract was found to have DPPH （52.08%）, NO （23.12%） and 02 （26.79%） scavenging activities at the concentration of 250 pg/mL and the results were statistically significant compared with ascorbic acid standard （p 〈 0.05）. HPTLC results confirmed that the extract contained several potential active com- ponents such as phenols, flavonoids, saponins and terpenoids as the slides revealed multi-colored bands of varying intensities. This study confirmed that the plant had multipotential antioxidant and free ra- dicals scavenging activities.

Antioxidant mediated response of Scoparia dulcis in noise-induced redox imbalance and immunohistochemical changes in rat brain

Noise has been regarded as an environmental/occupational stressor that causes damages to both auditory and non- auditory organs. Prolonged exposure to these mediators of stress has often resulted in detrimental effect, where oxidative/nitrosative stress plays a major role. Hence, it would be appropriate to examine the possible role of free radicals in brain discrete regions and the ＂antioxidants＂ mediated response of S. dulcis. Animals were subjected to noise stress for 15 days （100 dB/4 hours/day） and estimation of endogenous free radical and antioxidant activity were carried out on brain discrete regions （the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, brainstem, striatum, hippocampus and hypothalamus）. The result showed that exposure to noise could alleviate endogenous free radical generation and altered anfioxidant status in brain discrete regions when compared to that of the control groups. This alleviated free radical generation （H202 and NO） is well supported by an upregulated protein expression on immunohistochemistry of both iNOS and nNOS in the cerebral cortex on exposure to noise stress. These findings suggest that increased free radical generation and altered anti-oxidative status can cause redox imbalance in the brain discrete regions~ However, free radical scavenging activity of the plant was evident as the noise exposed group treated with S. dulcis[200 mg/（kg · b. w）] displayed a therapeutic effect by decreasing the free radical level and regulate the anti-oxidative status to that of control animals. Hence, it can be concluded that the efficacy of S. dulcis could be attributed to its free radical scavenging activity and anti-oxidative property.