Evaluation of the Anti-Inflammatory activity and Phytochemical Profiling of Bougainvillea glabra Choisy Flower and Bract
Keywords:
Bougainvillea glabra, Anti-inflammatory, Anti-denaturant, Nitric oxide radica, GC-MSAbstract
Background: Bougainvillea glabra is an ornamental plant with reported ethnomedicinal uses. Its genus Bougainvillea possesses anti-inflammatory activity and its bract is rich in phenolics. No study has examined the anti-inflammatory activity of the combined flower and bract.
Methods: This study evaluated the anti-inflammatory effect of B. glabra flower and bract (both structures parts contribute to the plant's phytochemicals) and profiled their constituents via gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The air-dried flower and bract were pulverised, macerated in 80% v/v ethanol, and the crude extract was partitioned with n-hexane and dichloromethane (DCM). Each fraction was evaluated for anti-inflammatory activity (antidenaturation and nitric oxide (NO) scavenging assays), and the active fractions were profiled via GCMS.
Results: The crude extract yielded 1.300%, from which the n-hexane and DCM fractions were recovered at 32.980 and 17.020%, respectively. Both fractions inhibited protein denaturation comparably to diclofenac sodium at fixed concentration (p > 0.05), while diclofenac sodium required statistically lower concentrations to achieve the same effect (IC = 0.037 ± 0.002 mg/mL; p = 0.013). 50 Both fractions exhibited NO scavenging activity comparable to ascorbic acid at fixed percentage inhibition (p > 0.05), though ascorbic acid demonstrated significantly greater potency (IC = 0.046 ± 500.001 mg/ml; p < 0.0001) than n-hexane and DCM fractions. GC-MS analysis identified twenty-nine unique compounds across both fractions, with oleic acid, 9,12-octadecadienoic acid, and nhexadecanoic acid among the dominant constituents.
Conclusion: These findings suggest that the n-hexane and DCM fractions of B. glabra flower and bract possess moderate anti-inflammatory activity, which may be associated with the identified compounds.
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