Records of Natural Products

Year: 2013  Volume: 7  Issue: 3

 

  ORIGINAL ARTICLE

2.

Analgesic and Antioxidant Activities of Algerian Retama raetam (Forssk.) Webb & Berthel Extracts

Samah Djeddi, Anastasia Karioti, Elina Yannakopoulou, Kyriakos Papadopoulos, Rim Chatter and Helen Skaltsa

Department of Pharmacognosy & Chemistry of Natural Products, School of Pharmacy, Zografou, 15771 Athens, Greece

Laboratory of Ecobiology of Marine and Littoral Environment, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Badji Mokhtar BP 12, Annaba 23000, Algeria

Institute of Physical Chemistry, N.C.S.R. ‘Demokritos’, Ag Paraskevi, 15310 Athens, Greece

Unity of Biotoxins, Institute Pasteur of Tunis 13, Place Pasteur, BP 74, Tunis 1002 Belvédère, Tunisia

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Florence, Ugo Schiff 6, Polo Scientifico, Sesto Fiorentino, 50019, Florence, Italy

Abstract: Part of this work deals with t he isolation and structure elucidation of the main polar secondary metabolites of the aerial parts of Retama raetam (Forssk.) Webb & Berthel, as well as the evaluation of their potential analgesic properties , while the rest deals with the antioxidant activities of the aqueous extracts of roots, stem, fruits and flowers of the plant . It was found that the isoflavones g enistein 1, 6-hydroxygenistein 2, 3'-O-methylorobol 3, pratensein 4, biochanin A 8, the flavones 6-hydroxyapigenin 7 and luteolin 5, the flavonol kaempferol 6,as well as the phenolic compound p-coumaric acid 9 reduce significantly the pain at a concentration dose of 1 mg/kg. The most active compounds were 3 and 8 (86.19% and 75.23%, respectively). The obtained aqueous extracts of R. raetam were also evaluated for their antioxidant activities using two different photometric methods; the results revealed that all extracts exerted very low free radical scavenging activity compared to the well-known butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and lower hydrogen peroxide blocking activity than positive control gallic acid.

Keywords: Retama raetam (Forssk.) Webb & Berthel ; isoflavones; analgesic activity; antioxidant activity.