Anti-diarrhoeal activity of a polyherbal formulation in rats and elucidation of its cellular mechanisms

Murugan, Sasikumar; Purusothaman, Divya; Richard, Edwin Jothie; Chalichem, Nehru Sai Suresh; Bethapudi, Bharathi; Chandrasekaran, Prasanna Raja; Chinampudur Velusami, Chandrasekaran; D&rsquo;Souza, Prashanth; Mundkinajeddu, Deepak

doi:10.22038/ajp.2019.14339

Anti-diarrhoeal activity of a polyherbal formulation in rats and elucidation of its cellular mechanisms

Document Type : Original Research Article

Authors

Sasikumar Murugan

Divya Purusothaman

Edwin Jothie Richard

Nehru Sai Suresh Chalichem

Bharathi Bethapudi

Prasanna Raja Chandrasekaran

Chandrasekaran Chinampudur Velusami

Prashanth D’Souza

Deepak Mundkinajeddu

Research and Development centre, Natural Remedies Pvt Ltd, Plot No. 5B, Veerasandra Indl. Area, 19th K.M. Stone, Hosur Road, Bangalore 560100, Karnataka, India

10.22038/ajp.2019.14339

Abstract

Objective: The present study was aimed to study anti-diarrhoeal activity of a polyherbal formulation (PHF) in rats and elucidate its mechanism of action.
Materials and Methods: Anti-diarrhoeal activity of PHF was investigated using castor oil-induced diarrhoea, small intestinal transit and enteropooling models in rats. PHF was tested at 75, 150 and 300 mg/kg rat body weight. Loperamide was used as a reference control for in vivo studies. Anti-secretory action was evaluated against heat labile enterotoxin (from Escherichia coli)induced secretion in rat ileal loop model. The effect of PHF (12.5-100 µg/ml) on cAMP-dependent secretory activity was investigated against forskolin-induced cAMP release in HT-29 cells.
Results: PHF demonstrated significant (p≤0.05) anti-diarrhoeal activity by increasing the time for first faecal drop and inhibited diarrhoeal episodes by 43, 58 and 60% at 75, 150 and 300 mg/kg body weight, respectively in a dose-dependent manner. Also, the intestinal transit was inhibited upto 33% and the weight of secretory contents induced by castor oil was significantly reduced by PHF, approximately 29% in enteropooling assay. On the other hand, the intestinal loop instilled with PHF and enterotoxin from E. coli demonstrated 61% inhibition of fluid accumulation as compared to loop instilled with enterotoxin only. In vitro studies indicated that PHF inhibits cAMP release in HT-29 cells corroborating the anti-secretory effects observed in aforesaid studies.
Conclusion: The results suggest that the PHF possesses anti-diarrhoeal activity, evident through reduced faecal output, decreased intestinal transit and anti-secretory activities.

Keywords

Anti-diarrhoea

Anti-secretory

Castor oil

cAMP

Diarrhoeal drop

Enterotoxin