Antiinflammatory Activities of Hungarian Stachys species and Their Iridoids

Abstract

The antiinflammatory activities of aqueous extracts prepared from the aerial parts of ten Hungarian Stachys species were investigated in vivo in the carrageenan-induced paw oedema test after intraperitoneal and oral administration to rats. Some of the extracts were found to display significant antiphlogistic effects when administered intraperitoneally and orally; in particular, the extracts of S. alpina, S. germanica, S. officinalis and S. recta demonstrated high activity following intraperitoneal administration. At the same dose of 5.0 mg/kg, these extracts exhibited similar or greater potency than that of the positive control diclofenac-Na. The main iridoids present in the investigated extracts, ajugoside, aucubin, acetylharpagide, harpagide and harpagoside, were also assayed in the same test, and high dose-dependent antiphlogistic effects were recorded for aucubin and harpagoside. These results led to the conclusion that most probably iridoids are responsible for the antiinflammatory effect of Stachys species, but other active constituents or their synergism must also be implicated in the antiinflammatory effect.

Iridoids from Cornus mas L. and their potential as innovative ingredients in cosmetics

“…Dogwood berries have been shown to contain primarily oleanolic acid, ursolic acid, morroniside 11 , loganin 12 , sweroside, and cornuside. Iridoids have powerful antiinfl ammatory and antibacterial properties both in internal and external applications 13 . They are potent antioxidants, and may thus display anticancer activity in skin cancer 14, 15 , cancer of the colon, lungs, or nose and throat…”

Phytochemical composition of the essential oil of different populations of Stachys lavandulifolia Vahl

“…Also, the yield of the oils extracted from other species was: 0.18% from Stachys setifera ssp. Iranica [31] , 0.18% from Stachy chrysantha [15] , and 0.12% from Stachy candida [14] . In other study, Radulovic et al reported that the yield of the obtained essential oils from Balkan Peninsula endemics species (Stachys germanica ssp.…”

“…A high α-pinene (37.3%) in Farsan population has previously been proposed in the oil (20.1%) of S. lavandulifolia Vahl collected from Tehran, Iran [19] . In the essential oil of Naghah population, a main constituent was found to be myrcene (15 [36] . Genetic differences cannot be directly deduced from the varying amounts of a secondary plant product [37] .…”

“…The inflorescences (0.05-0.10 kg) of wild populations of S. lavandulifolia Vahl were collected at the early flowering stage on [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] June 2010 (During 20 day's period). The samples of the plants were identified by regional floras and authors with floristic and taxonomic references [3] , and voucher specimens were deposited at the Herbarium of Agriculture and Natural Resources Researches Centre of Chaharhal va Bakhtiari province, Iran (No.…”

“…Anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antibacterial and anti-leishmania activities and effect reduced primary dysmenorrheal of S. lavandulifolia Vahl extract and essential oil have been shown in several pharmacological studies [11][12][13] . Previous investigations revealed that the main iridoid components of Stachys species, such as aucubin, harpagide and harpagoside, exert anti-inflammatory activities, as demonstrated in cellular systems of arachidonic acid metabolism [14,15] . Even though Stachys is one of the largest members of the Lamiaceae, the essential oil chemistry of the genus has not been studied in much detail.…”