Antinociceptive activities of aqueous and ethanolic extracts of Alpinia calcarata rhizomes in rats
Introduction
Alpinia calcarata Roscoe (Zingiberaceae), Heen-araththa in Sinhala, Amkolinji in Tamil and Kattuchena in Malay is a rhizomatous perennial herb. The mature rhizomes are branched and dense with a light to dark brown color. The leaf of the plant is simple, alternative, 25–32 cm long, 2.5–5 cm broad. The flowers are irregular, bisexual and pendanculate. Terminal densed flowers are found in panicles 8.5 cm long (Dassanayake and Fosberg, 1981, Jayaweera, 1982). Alpinia calcarata is cultivated in tropical countries including Sri Lanka, India and Malaysia. Especially the rhizomes of Alpinia calcarata are used for the medicinal purposes (Jayaweera, 1982).
Kong et al., 2000, Kong et al., 2002 have isolated some diterpenes such as calcaratarins A–E, sesquiterpenes such as shyobunone and coumarins such as herniarin from the rhizomes of Alpinia calcarata grown in China. On the other hand, some benzenoids such as protocatechuic acid, vanillic acid and syringic acid, flavonoids and alkaloids were isolated from the leaves of Alpinia calcarata grown in India (Merh et al., 1986). In our studies (Arambewela et al., in press) we have isolated 18 volatile constituents in essential oils of Sri Lankan grown Alpinia calcarata rhizomes, roots and leaves. 1,8-Cineol was found to be the major constituent in the oils of rhizomes and leaves while in the roots, it was α-fenchyl acetate.
Indian researches have shown antibacterial (George and Pandalai, 1949), antifungal (Pushpangadan and Atal, 1984) and anthelmintic activity (Kaleysa, 1975) in extracts of Alpinia calcarata. However, in Indian traditional ayurveda medicine Alpinia calcarata is not generally used. On the other hand, in Sri Lankan traditional ayurveda medicine rhizome of Alpinia calcarata is recommended as an aphrodisiac and a decoction is widely used in the treatment of bronchitis, cough, respiratory ailments, diabetics, asthma (Ramanayake, 1994) and arthritis (Ramanayake, 1994, Arambewela et al., 1995). Generally drugs that are used for arthrities have antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory properties. However, antinociceptive activity of Alpinia calcarata rhizomes has not been investigated using scientifically controlled experiments. Therefore, this study was undertaken to examine whether extracts of rhizomes of Alpinia calcarata possess antinociceptive activity. This was tested in rats using oral administration of hot water and hot ethanolic extracts.
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Plant material
Fresh Alpinia calcarata rhizomes were collected from home gardens in Kaluthara district, Sri Lanka between August and November 2002. The plant material was identified and authenticated by Mr. D.H.P. Peramunagama, Curator of National Herbarium, Royal Botanical Gardens, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. A voucher specimen (AS 01) was deposited in the Industrial Technology Institute, Colombo 7, Sri Lanka.
Animals
Healthy adult cross-bred male albino rats (weighing 200–250 g) were used throughout the experiment. They
Phytochemical screening of HWE and HEE
Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of alkaloids, steroids, coumarins, reducing sugars and flavonoids in both extracts (results not shown).
Hot plate and tail flick tests
In the hot plate test, significant prolongation of the reaction time was evident with both extracts at 1 h post-treatment (Fig. 1, Fig. 2). All doses of HWE significantly prolonged (P < 0.05) the reaction time for up to 4 h apart from the 1000 mg/kg dose which was only active for 1 h. On the other hand, all the tested doses of HEE significantly
Discussion
The results demonstrate that extracts of rhizomes of Alpinia calcarata have antinociceptive activity as evaluated in the hot plate test and not in the tail flick test. This indicates centrally mediated antinociceptive activity of the plant extracts against the acute pain: both hot plate and tail flick tests measure centrally mediated transient pain (Lopez-Munoz et al., 1993). It is claimed that the antinociceptive activity of extracts was genuine as there was no change in the retain times of
Acknowledgements
The authors express their gratitude to Mr. J.R.A.C. Jayakody, University of Colombo, Department of Zoology, for assisting in this study and National Science Foundation for the Research grant (SIDA (1L) 2000/BT/03).
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