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ABSTRACT
Medicinal plants play a very important in catering to human health due to the bio-active compounds that are responsible for their various pharmacological activities. Gongronema latifolium is a traditional medicinal plant that has been reported to possess saponins, flavonoids and alkaloids as major phytoconstituents.
These chemical compounds have been shown to exhibit various biological activities including the inhibition of inflammatory cytokines and redox imbalance, which are likely mechanisms by which Gongronema latifolium plants exert anti-diabetic action. The current study is aimed at evaluating the anti-oxidant properties of Gongronema latifolium, suggesting it might have beneficial effects on streptozotocin induced wistar rats. The study was performed by investigating the effect of the dichloromethane fraction of Gongronema latifolium extract on the blood glucose levels of male Wistar rats given a double intra peritoneal injection of STZ suspended in a citrate buffer after an overnight fasting. A total of ninety eight healthy male Wistar rats were obtained from department of Animal and environmental biology. The animals were grouped into five different groups. Group 1 served as the normal control group and was exposed to standard diet only ad-libitum for the period of study. Group 2 was the negative control group which was induced with STZ without treatment. Group 3 was the treatment group which was exposed to STZ and then Metformin was administered. Group 4 was the treatment group administered with 200mg/kg of DCM Gongronema latifolium extracts. Group 5 was treated with 400mg of DCM fraction of Gongronema Latifolium.
At the end of the study, animals was fasted overnight and sacrificed, the organs were harvested and homogenized. Tissue homogenate was subjected to total RNA isolation and PCR amplification. Results from this study shows that STZ significantly decreased the weight and increased the blood glucose levels of the rats. Treatment of the rats with the extract of Gongronema latifolium significantly reduced these elevated levels to ameliorate the effects caused by the STZ. This shows that various dozes of dichloromethane fraction of Gongronema latifolium stem bark possess anti-diabetic activity via modulating hyperglycemia, inhibiting redox imbalance in STZ induced diabetes in male Wistar rats.
