Seaweed Chara baltica: Isolation, Characterization and In vivo Antidiabetic Study

Abstract

For the first time, five known metabolites - 1 and 5 are reported from the ethyl acetate extract from seaweed Chara baltica (EAE). Both the metabolites and EAE were screened against free- radicals, α-glucosidase enzyme and glycaemia in albino rats. 4, 5 and EAE depicted significant antiradical and α-glucosidase inhibitory profile. Particularly, compound 5 showed equivalent inhibition of superoxide free radical as that of the standard drug with IC50 value of 32.0 µg/mL. In addition, the EAE (200 mg/kg b.w) revealed significant reduction in plasma glucose, body weight, total cholesterol, total glycerides and LDL levels in Streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. The HDL levels were markedly augmented in EAE treated diabetic rats, when compared with control group. EAE abolished the increased lipid peroxidation content in both liver and kidneys. The histopathological examination of pancreas of EAE protected the Langerhans islets with the number of islet cells were found statistically significant, when compared to diabetic control pancreas. This is the first in vitro and in vivo antidiabetic report on C. baltica.

Keywords:
Antioxidant activity; α-Glucosidase inhibitory; Langerhans islets; Glycaemia