Evidence for gastroprotective, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant potential of methanolic extract of Cordia dichotoma leaves on indomethacin and stress induced gastric lesions in Wistar rats.

The Cordia dichotoma (CD) is having anticancer and other pharmacological effects as it contains mainly flavonoids. The present study was aimed to demonstrate the gastroprotective effect of methanolic extract of CD leaves (MECD) obtained using Soxhlet extractor. In this study the qualitative phytochemical analysis of MECD revealed the presence of bioflavonoids and determination of quercetin was confirmed by HPLC analysis. The MECD was administered orally at doses 50 mg/kg, 100 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg against indomethacin induced gastric ulceration and stress-induced gastric ulceration in Wistar rats. Omeprazole at 10 mg/kg orally was used as the reference standard. The various parameters like gastric volume, gastric pH, total acidity, ulcer index, percent protection were estimated for assessment of anti-secretory and gastroprotective effects of MECD. At the same time antioxidant parameters like superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and malondialdehyde (MDA) in addition to that inflammatory parameters such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 and interleukin-10 were also estimated according to their respective method of estimation using analyzing kit. The MECD have reduced gastric volume, total acidity and gastric mucosal damage in both the experimental models significantly and dose dependently as compared with control group. Similarly the antioxidant enzymes like SOD and CAT were increased while MDA levels were decreased significantly, at the same time TNF-α and IL-6 levels were decreased and anti-inflammatory IL-10 levels were increased significantly in MECD treated groups. Thus the pretreatment with MECD has shown significant gastroprotective potential probably due to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.