ABSTRACT
Recently, various plant parts and other plant constituents have been researched for their potential as drug sources and for medical purposes. One such plant with a long history of use is Ficus exasperata. Strong national systems that keep an eye on drug manufacture and quality worldwide. Ficus exasperata leaves are well known for treating a variety of diseases and disorders. Wistar male rats were used as the study's specimens. 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH) is a hydrazine in which one of the hydrogen attached to each nitrogen has been replaced by a methyl group. It is a powerful alkylating agent used to induce colon cancer in laboratory rats and mice. However, the leaf has been said to possess some properties related to oxidative stress and antioxidant levels, which is the study's goal. Wistar male rats were used as specimen in this study, the leaves of Ficus exasperata were dried, grinded and soaked with methanol after 72hours, then sieved and concentrated to obtain the methanolic extract of Ficus plant used for the treatment of colon cancer, the rats were grouped into eight (8) groups with eight rats in each group. Each rats were fed with feed and induced with 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (30mg/kg) except those in group 1 which is the control group. Group 2 were administered extract only (500mg of extract), Group 3 was given carcinogen only (DMH), group 4 was given DMH and 500mg of extract simultaneously, Group 5 was given DMH and 750mg of extract, Group 6 was pretreatment, Group 7 was post-treatment, while Group 8 was administered the standard drug of 5-fluorouracil. The Ficus exasperata extract was administered daily while the DMH was administered at 2 times a week, after 11 weeks of administration, the rats were sacrificed. The tissues were thereafter harvested into sample bottles, homogenized and used immediately to carry out the experiment. The antioxidants, catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and total protein (TP) activities were carried out on the liver to check the effect of the plant extract on the organ. The SOD levels shows significant differences (P< 0.05) on the liver of the control when compared with the test groups. This observation supports that the level of 500mg of xi extract was more effective in scavenging free radicals than the 750mg of extract, the 500mg of extract had a higher SOD activity than the 750mg of extract as compared to the control in the SOD activity. In the group treated with 5-Fluorouracil there was no effect on SOD and this indicates that there was no antioxidant activity and it is not effective in the treatment of colon cancer and scavenging free radicals as compared to 500mg of extract treatment group, it was also discovered that there was a low level of antioxidant in the pre-treatment and post-treatment groups. From the catalase assay, the 500mg of extract had a higher catalase activity as compared to the control, this implies that the extract provided a high ability to neutralize free radicals, the DMH control had a lower catalase activity and the inability to neutralize free radicals, it was indicated that the 750mg of extract was toxic, while in the pre-treatment and post-treatment group there was a moderate catalase activity, while the 5-fluorouracil treated group had a very low catalase activity
