Abstract
Demand for plant-based medications and therapeutics is increasing worldwide as of its potential effects and no toxic. Traditionally, so many medicinal plants are used to treat diabetes. Subsequently, investigation on medicinal plants was enduring to discover potential antidiabetic drugs. A. tetracantha is used traditionally to cure diabetes mellitus, cough, dropsy, chronic diarrhea, rheumatism, phthisis and smallpox. Scientifically, A. tetracantha has been reported as an antidiabetic agent. Friedelin, the isolated compound has been reported as hypolipidemic, antioxidant, scavenging of free radicals, antiulcer, anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic agent.
To scrutinize the mechanism of antidiabetic activity of friedelin isolated from the leaves of A. tetracantha.
A. tetracantha leaves powder (5 kg) was soaked in hexane (15 L) to obtain hexane extract. Using column chromatography, the hexane extract was fractionated using a combination of solvents like hexane and ethyl acetate. 25 fractions were obtained and the fractions 13 and 14 yielded the compound, friedelin. Friedelin at the doses of 20 and 40 mg/kg was used to treated STZ -induced diabetic rats for 28 days. Later 28 days of treatment, the bodyweight changes, levels of blood glucose, insulin, SGOT, SGPT, SALP, liver glycogen and total protein were assessed.
Friedelin significantly brought these altered levels to near normal. Moreover, friedelin also enhanced the translocation as well as activation of GLUT2 and GLUT4 through PI3K/p-Akt signaling cascade in skeletal muscles and liver on diabetic rats.
This finding proved that friedelin has an anti-diabetic effect through insulin-dependent signaling cascade mechanism, thus it may lead to establishing a drug to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus.
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