Antioxidant and antiplasmodial activities of Malus sikkimenmsis bioactives and their role in the suppression of LPS-induced neuroinflammation in glial cells

Abstract

As a part of our continued effort to isolate and identify the pharmacological properties of polyphenols from Malus Sikkimensis, here in this work we have evaluated the neuroprotective effects of these polyphenols along with their antioxidant and antiplasmodial properties. The antioxidant potential of these bioactives was estimated using enzymatic and non-enzymatic methods of free radical generation, where phloretin (PT) displayed better antioxidant potential under both the conditions. Additionally, PT also exhibited significant antiplasmodial activity. Phloridzin (PZ) and phloretin (PT) were also studied for their effect on lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced neuro-inflammation in rat (C6) glioma cells. Our results showed that pre-treatment of PZ and PT at 5 and 10 µg/ml concentrations significantly (p < 0.05) suppressed the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α and IL-6) in a dose dependent manner. Additionally, PT exhibited more potent anti-inflammatory activity than PZ without any cytotoxic effects, as estimated using MTT assay. These findings suggest that PT possessed promising anti-neuroinflammatory potential along with antioxidant and antiplasmodial activities, which may be enhanced further by structural modification and chemical derivatization.

Keywords

• Malus sikkimensis
• Neuroinflammation
• Glial cells
• Antioxidant
• Antiplasmodial
• Phloretin