Phytochemical and pharmacological investigation of Xanthium indicum Koen. (family-compositae)

Xanthium indicum (Koen.) is belongs to the family, Compositae, well known in traditional medicine systems in Bangladesh for the treatment of various ailments. The ethanol extract of the leaves of Xanthium indicum Koen. was subjected to pharmacologic al investigation to evalute analgesic, antioxidant, and antibacterial activity. Phytochemical analysis of the extract indicated the presence of reducing sugars, tannins, carbohydrates, glycosides, alkaloids, and flavonoids. The ethanol extract showed statistically significant analgesic activity (P<0.001) in acetic acid induced writhing test in Swiss-Albino mice at the doses of 250 and 500 mg/kgbody weight. The extract inhibited the acetic acid induced writhing in mice (47.5% P<0.001 and 24.55% P<0.05) at the dose of 500 and 250 mg/kg body weight respectively and it is comparable to the activity of the standard analgesic drug Diclofenac sodium (67.96% P<0.001) at the dose of 25 mg/kg body weight. The extract showed free radical scavenging activity in DPPH (1,1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) assay. In quantitative assay, the extract exhibited DPPH radical scavenging activity with the IC50 value of 141.25 µg/mL. In the castor oilinduced diarrhoeal mice, the ethanol extract at the dose of 500 mg/kg, reduced the total number of faeces as well as of diarrhoeic faeces, and the result was statistically significant. The results tend to suggest that the extract might possess some chemical constituents that are responsible for analgesic, antioxidant, and antidiarrhoeal activity.