ANTISICKLING ACTIVITY OF EREMOMASTAX POLYSPERMA AND ITS EFFECTS ON SERUM LIPID AND PROTEIN PROFILES OF ALBINO WISTAR RATS (Published)
Sickle cell anaemia is a major problem of the developing world. The search for antisickling agent is of particular interest since plant bioactive agents are said to be of medicinal significance. In this study the antisiskling serum lipid and protein profiles of ethanolic extract of Eremomastax polysperma were performed using standard experimental procedures. The result obtained revealed that the extract effectively inhibited sickling in vitro. There was a persistent increase in antisickling potential of the extract on a time dependent manner, with the highest percentage sickling inhibition of 66.7 % at the 180th Mins. This was significantly (p < 0.05) higher than 36.0 % obtained with the group administered with vehicle. Similarly, the extract affected the serum total cholesterol and triacylglycerol significantly (p < 0.05) when compared with the control group. Also, the serum low density lipoprotein- cholesterol (LDL- cholesterol) was significantly lower in the extract test groups. This aided the reduction of the ratio of bad to good cholesterol as typified by the lower ratio of LDL/HDL- cholesterol in the experimental tested group than the control. Though the total protein levels of the tested groups were lower than those in the control group, this reduction was not significant to extent of assuming toxicity at the tested doses.
Keywords: Antisickling, bioactive, extract, lipoprotein