Abstract

PHYTOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS & ANTHELMINTIC ACTIVITY OF LEAVES OF LEUCAENA LEUCOCEPHALA

Vivek Kumar Raman*, Ankush Rana and Amit Sharma

Abstract

Helminthic infections are chronic illnesses both in human beings and cattles. Pheritima postuma earthworms are a known helminthic and they have anatomical and physiological similarities with intestinal roundworm parasite present inside human beings. Medicinal plants have been using as health care products from a long time ago that have been used by humans in the form of traditional medicines all over the world. The use of herbal drugs extract and their remedies have increased throughout the world against the increasing use of synthetic drug medicines. Objective: To study the phytochemical analysis and anthelmintic activity of various prepared extracts obtained from the leaves of Leucaena leucocephala against earth worms Pheritima postuma. Material and Methods: 3 concentrations (10 mg/ml, 25 mg/ml and 50 mg/ml) of several prepared extracts such as chloroform extract, methanol extract, ethyl acetate extract and Petroleum ether extract were tested in earth worms and results were expressed in the terms of time taken for paralysis and time taken for death of worms. Tinidazole (10 mg/ml) was taken as standard drug and tween 80 as a vehicle control group. Result: All the prepared extracts were tested at 10 mg/ml, 25 mg/ml and 50 mg/ml concentrations, in which petroleum ether extract shows much better anthelmintic activity than all other prepared extracts and than the reference standard drug Tinidazole. Conclusion: This study review has demonstrated that the petroleum ether extract of Leucaena leucocephala leaves possess significant in vitro anti-worm activity at the tested concentrations.

Keywords: Leucocephala, helminths, anthelmintic, Subabul, petroleum ether, squalene.